Australian Citizenship Pledge

26 January 2021

From this time forward, under God,

I pledge my loyalty to Australia and its people,

whose democratic beliefs I share,

whose right and liberties I respect, and 

whose laws I will uphold and obey.

Today, I took an oath of allegiance to Australia, which is now my 2nd home. 

I never imagined myself being a citizen of another country, other than the Philippines, but God 

provided me an opportunity to call this amazing place my new home. 

My Australian journey started on 2013 when I sought Respall's migration assistance. 

I received my subclass 489 (Skilled Regional Sponsored - Provisional) visa on February 2015.

Then waited for another 2 years to satisfy the eligibility requirements for subclass 887 (Skilled Regional) application. I received my visa grant on December 2018.  The difference is that the latter is a permanent visa subclass while the former is a skilled visa intended to drive migrants to live in specified regional areas for at least 2 years and to work for at least 1 year full time. 

Leap of faith as they say to people taking great risk to move to another place with so much uncertainty, which I did when I moved in Australia last July 2015. No permanent place to stay in, limited budget, unemployed, and the like. But my strong faith helped me to carry on in this journey; however, there were also periods wherein I made attempts to return back to the Philippines due to being unemployed (full time permanent role) for almost 4 months. Surprisingly, God moves in His ways. He answered my prayer by giving me a full time permanent role related to my previous work experience, but I needed to relocate from Queanbeyan NSW to Griffith NSW, which is approximately a 5-hour drive. 

I did it - for the job and to continue my journey in Australia. Griffith is a vibrant city in Riverina region, which caters for most agro-industrial businesses in Australia with products such as wine, oranges, cotton, rice and of course - poultry fresh products. It has been my home since then until now. 

I'm glad to meet friends, friends who turned to be my family, colleagues and acquaintances. But most especially I was given an opportunity to serve my parish better than ever before. I'd like to take this opportunity to thank God, my family, relatives, friends and everyone who've been part of my Australian journey. This is not the end, rather a start of another chapter of my migration story.