A licensed architect who was not
paid her full year's pay while working in Brunei has turned things around and
is now freelancing online, earning up to 7 digits per month.
Joannes Paula "JP"
Espino, who graduated from the University of Sto. Tomas (UST) with a bachelor's
degree in architecture and a master's degree in education from the Philippine
Normal University (PNU), said the incident with her employer turned out to be a
blessing in disguise because she now works from home.
“When I was an Overseas Filipino
Worker, I had a bad experience with my employer, whereas he didn’t pay my
salary for a full year,” Espino said.
“Because of that,” she added, “I
was forced to file a case against him.” But unknown to her at the time,
filing a case against her employer meant she could not take on another job
because of her employment visa, which could not be nullified while the matter
remains pending arbitration.
While the lawsuit was ongoing,
Espino was also unable to return to the Philippines. “Because of that, the only way I could earn was to work
online, which was what I did. It (labor case) turned out to be a blessing in
disguise as that (freelancing) became my turning point. From earning just $5
per project (during the early days of freelancing online), I have now
transitioned to multiple business opportunities that generate up to seven
figures a month (in pesos),” Espino said.
Espino used to travel around the
world with her daughter before COVID, spending days as a digital nomad when she
wasn't working on her architectural projects or delivering "value
bombs" in her workshops and webinars.
Meanwhile, Espino recently spoke
at a weekly, free Zoom livestream workshop series in Dubai called “Opportunity
for Filipino Workers” (OFF Workers), where he explained how to create an online
presence using social media.
For OFWs who want to transition
and utilize social media to promote their companies and attract more clients,
Espino offered advice during the online session on how to publish more
effective social media content that attracts the target market.
There will be nineteen sessions,
each guided by one of the 19 resource individuals. The subjects include a wide
range of issues, including entrepreneurship, e-Commerce, personal and visual
branding, sales and marketing, Facebook advertisements, e-mail marketing, and
website building, to name a few.
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