About 100 mourners bid farewell to Hong Kong migrant rights advocate Esther “Buhay” Bangcawayan

Migrant rights advocate Esther “Buhay” Bangcawayan, a case worker for the Mission for Migrant Workers and Bethune House Migrant Women’s Refuge who died on 14 October aged 66, was laid to rest in Hong Kong, with about 100 mourners from the Filipino community, non-government organizations and other sectors attending.

Migrant rights advocate Esther “Buhay” Bangcawayan was laid to rest in Hong Kong on Monday morning after a funeral mass at St John’s Cathedral in Central, The SUN Hong Kong reported on 3 November. About 100 mourners from the Filipino community, non-government organizations and other sectors attended, and her remains were cremated at Cape Collinson in Chai Wan.

Bangcawayan died on 14 October, aged 66, after a long battle with colon cancer. She was a case worker for the Mission for Migrant Workers and the Bethune House Migrant Women’s Refuge, and Buhay was the name she was known by in the Filipino community in Hong Kong.

More than four decades of organizing

In a tribute published by The SUN in October, Eman Villanueva, chairperson of Bayan Hong Kong and Macau, said Bangcawayan spent more than four decades of her life organizing and helping distressed migrants, mostly women. She was a founding member and leader of the Asian Domestic Workers Union (ADWU), composed of Filipino, Indonesian, Thai, Sri Lankan, Nepalese and Indian domestic workers.

Villanueva wrote that, as a Cordilleran herself, she was a key figure in organising the first ever Cordillera Day in Hong Kong, which became an annual commemoration, and that she was instrumental in setting up the Filipino Migrant Workers' Union (FMWU) chapter on Chater Road.

The Asia Pacific Mission for Migrants (APMM), which she joined in the late 1990s, said she became its Welfare Program and Women’s Program Officer and supported Filipino migrant workers in South Korea in forming KASAMMAKO. When she became coordinator of APMM’s programs in Macau, she supported the formation of migrant workers organisations there.

As one of the senior case officers at the Mission for Migrant Workers, she assisted migrant workers in their legal battles, trained migrant domestic workers to become welfare officers of their own organizations and mentored student interns to become volunteer case officers, according to Villanueva's tribute.

“For many of us, Buhay was a migrant leader, an organizer, a case officer, and a trainer all rolled into one — a true migrant activist and internationalist who dedicated most of her life to the service of others, irrespective of nationality,” Villanueva said.

Farewell from friends and family

Before the funeral, a wake was held over two days at the Universal Funeral Parlor in Hung Hom. Cynthia Tellez, general manager of the Mission, spoke of her passion for helping the distressed and the disadvantaged: “I remember you, Buhay, when you cried with a client over a lost case.”

Speaking on behalf of the family, her niece said her aunt's Hong Kong friends knew more about her because she spent more than half of her life overseas, and that the family was pleased to hear her described as a “lifeline to others”. The SUN reported that several Bethune House clients who lived with her in the shelter, including a survivor of the Tai Po fire, spoke of how she had given them comfort and strength even as she faced her own battle with cancer.

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