SINE CABOLOAN

"Filipino diaspora is both a personal and political issue for me surfacing at various levels in my creative works as writer and filmmaker like War Booty, Pure Stone Is the Source of Light , Lakaran, The Calling, and others."

“I am Christopher Quijalvo Gozum. I was born in the Central Pangasinan town of Bayambang. Severo Quijalvo, the brother of my late maternal grandfather Urbano, the son of a farmer who migrated to Pangasinan from San Vicente, Ilocos Sur during the Early American Period, is a contemporary of the expatriate Filipino writer and activist Carlos Bulosan. As  young teenage boys, they left their poor families in Pangasinan to find work in the vast agricultural plantations of the Pacific West Coast in the United States during the thirties.”

“Starting in the seventies, two of my maternal uncles, Diosdado Quijalvo and Fernando Quijalvo left their hometown Bayambang for contractual work in various companies in the Middle East. Diosdado has now retired from working abroad and has been succeeded by his eldest daughter Liezel while Fernando continues to work in the United Arab Emirates to provide for his family in Pangasinan.”

“At present, many of my cousins who are my contemporaries belonging to the fourth generation of the Quijalvo family have either immigrated or have found employment in rich countries like Canada,United Arab Emirates, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, South Korea and Taiwan  mainly to provide for their family’s needs in the Philippines. Last May 2007, my younger brother Noel left Bayambang to work as a safety officer in a company in Yanbu City, Saudi Arabia. I believe I have not been spared from this sad and vicious cycle. In November 2007 at the peak of my artistic career, I finally left the Philippines for greener pastures abroad. I am currently working as a video editor in the television department of a famous medical institution in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.”