Ramon “Mon” Sevilla never imagined his life would revolve around steel pipes, safety harnesses, and dizzying heights. At 38, the man from Calamba, Laguna had already tasted most forms of hard labor carpentry, welding, masonry but it was scaffolding that gave him his ticket abroad.
Back home, Mon had been the family’s rock. With a wife and two kids, he took whatever job he could find. When a neighbor told him about a demand for scaffolders in Saudi Arabia, Mon, was skeptical. “Hindi ko pa nga nasasakyan yung eroplano”, he joked. But when he saw how much he could earn triple what he was making he knew he had to take the risk.
Within months, Mon found himself in Jubail, Saudi Arabia, working for a construction firm that built petrochemical plants. It was his first time abroad. The desert heat was punishing, the safety standards were strict, and the job? Terrifying.
Everyday, Mon scaled metal structures assembling and dismantling temporary scaffolding systems several stories above the ground. One wrong move could mean injury or worse. But fear had no place in his mind. Para to sa pamilya ko, he reminded himself every morning, strapping on his helmet and harness like armor.
At first, the work was overwhelming. The height, the foreign supervisors barking instructions in English and Arabic, the pressure to work fast and error-free. But Mon paid attention. He learned the terms, watched how the experienced guys tied off safely, how they read blueprints and laid out materials with military precision.
Soon, Mon became known as one of the most reliable scaffolders on the site. Supervisors trusted him with high-risk jobs, and he trained new hires even fellow Filipinos who came in wide eyed and unsure. He wasn’t the fastest, but he always precise. Better slow and safe than quick and sorry, he’d say.
He worked six days a week, 10-12 hours a day. On rest days, he called his wife and children through video chat. His youngest once asked, “Papa, bakit lagi kang nasa taas?” He laughed and replied, “Para mas makita ko ang pangarap natin.
With each paycheck, Mon paid off the debts from his deployment, supported his brother’s college tuition, and slowly built a two-story home back in Calamba a far cry from their old rented room with a leaking roof.
But it wasn’t always easy. Mon missed birthdays, anniversaries, and even his father’s funeral. He grieved alone, quietly, thousands of miles from home, on top of steel frames under the scorching sun. He buried his pain in work, in prayers, and in the though that someday, he’d come home for good.
By his fourth year, Mon was promoted to Lead Scaffolder, with a higher salary and more responsibility. He began drafting his dream: returning home to start a small construction supply business, using the knowledge and savings he’d earned abroad.
One day, while overseeing a job 15 stories up, Mon looked out across the horizon and thought of his family. Minsan, he whispered, kailangan mong umakyat nang mataas, para maabot mo ang mga pangarap na nasa baba. Steel bones. Calloused hands. A heart that neber wavered.
Mon wasn’t just building scaffolds he was building a future, piece by piece, pipe by pie, until the day he could finally come down and go home.
