New life in a strange land worth the journey

Born in 1965, the fourth of six children, Bayani Baluyot had a happy childhood, growing up in the suburbs of Manila, Philippines, with his extended family living nearby.

His father was a jeepney taxi driver and his mother baked sweet delicacies to sell on the street in front of their home.

Finances were tight, and when he was still in primary school, Bayani would get up at 4am to sell pandesal, small bread rolls, before he went to school.

During school holidays in his teens he sold sticks and packs of cigarettes in the street to help pay his way through high school.

“Life was hard, I just wanted to help out. We had just enough to feed the family. Mum really worked hard to feed us and send us to school,” he said.

An “ordinary student”, his dream to become an electrical engineer was foiled by a poor result in one trigonometry exam and so he switched his focus to mechanical engineering.

On weekdays he worked at the Converse shoe factory and attended university lectures in the evenings and on weekends.

In 1986 he applied for residency in Australia after older sister Enjie married an Australian and moved to Geraldton.

The application was expected to take a long time to process, so he lodged the paperwork and forgot about it.

Seventeen months later, with a year and a half to go on a Bachelor in Science, he was granted permanent residency and moved to Geraldton, sponsored by his brother-in-law and sister, Graeme and Enjie Whyatt.

Mr Baluyot believes he was the first Filipino man to settle in Geraldton, a “fact” firmly held among sections of Geraldton’s now-bustling ex-patriot community (which made up 0.86 per cent of Geraldton’s population last year).

Although life was good, the 22-year-old city boy from Manila had some challenges in his adopted country.

“I worked with Graeme as a bricky’s labourer,” he said.

“I was homesick. When I moved here the environment changed. You don’t see people outside, like there (Philippines), you see people you can chat but here — nothing, I don’t see any people outside ... but that’s 28 years ago.”

Determined to make a go of it in the “land of opportunity”, he became an Australian citizen in 1990.

He picked tomatoes in a market garden, cared for chooks at a chicken farm and drove a rubbish truck.

In 1995 while doing seasonal work at CBH he finally found himself in a position to be able to pursue further study.

“I was always dreaming of finishing my study and I started learning to weld at TAFE,” he said.

In 2004 Mr Baluyot completed a “fast-track” apprenticeship in engineering fabrication while working for a boat builder.

He has worked as a welder for engineering firm Diab for 10 years.

Now a family man with teenaged girls, Bianca and Abigail, Mr Baluyot flies in and out of Geraldton to mine sites in the Pilbara.

He said the four-and-one roster was not ideal for a family man, but he’s thankful to be working.

“It is hard and I want to quit sometimes, but I want to give the best life to my children,” he said.

A pioneering member of the Geraldton Filipino Mabuhay Club and Geraldton Filipino Christian Fellowship, Mr Baluyot and wife Tess, who he married in 1997, are proud Australians.

“This is my home. By God’s grace, we live here. So many people don’t realise they are living in this country ‘flowing with milk and honey’— with more opportunity, instead they whinge,” Mr Baluyot said.

“Although they say we are living in recession, we are still surviving here.”

It is not lost on Mr Baluyot, where as a child he longed to have a bike and loved to hear about Disneyland, he now has a car and happy memories of taking his wife and children to Disneyland in Asia.

“Things are a lot better now in the Philippines, but … if you are a welder here you can drive a Pajero or a Prado, but there you cannot even get a Moped,” he said.