Thirteen Filipinos who are making a difference in Britain attended a reception hosted by King Charles and the Queen Consort to celebrate British East and Southeast Asian communities at Buckingham Palace on 1st February. The event followed the observance of the Lunar New Year which fell on 22nd January.
Based on social media posts, Tinig UK gathered that two writers, at least 10 nurses, a community organiser and an actor were invited to the reception. Tinig UK reached out to the Royal Communications office to ask how many Filipinos were invited to the event but they were unable to provide any details.
Award-winning poet Romalyn Ante and food writer Maria Garbutt-Lucero were at the event in recognition of their work in advancing South East Asian literature.
Ante’s debut poetry collection, Antiemetic for Homesickness, was described as a “tour de force” and was shortlisted for the Jhalak Prize in 2021. A second-generation nurse – Ante’s mother is also a nurse in the NHS – Ante is the first to explore migrant Filipino nurses’ longings, pains and hopes. She co-founded Harana Poetry, an online magazine for poets writing in English as a second or parallel language.
Maria Garbutt-Lucero is a food writer, chef and publicity director at Hodder and Stoughton, a publishing company. She co-founded the East and Southeast Asian (ESEA) Publishing Network with Joanna Lee in 2022 to amplify the voices of writers from the region and promote ESEA talent working across the UK publishing industry. The pair recently launched the first ESEA Literary Festival taking place in September 2023 to coincide with the ESEA Heritage Month.
At least 10 Filipino nurses were invited to the event for their contributions to their hospitals and communities. Below are some of the nurses who attended the event:
Jennifer Caguioa is the first Filipino to work as international recruitment and ethnic minorities nurse advisor in NHS England. She is concurrently on secondment as Head of Global at the Florence Nightingale Foundation, again the first Filipino to hold the position. At King’s College Hospital, she initiated Project KINs (King’s International Nurses) “How are we doing?” which focused on supporting the care and well-being of newly arrived overseas nurses in her organisation. Her work at the NHS and FNF both involve improving the pastoral and professional support for ethnic minority nurses and midwives, engaging with diaspora associations, and scoping the opportunity for global work.
Louie Horne is a research fellow for the NHS Work Race Equality Standards (WRES) while also deputy associate director of nursing and senior matron at East Suffolk and North Essex NHS Foundation Trust. Horne chairs the hospital’s Black, Asian and minority ethnic (BAME) network. In 2021, she played a key role in getting NHS staff to identify themselves as Filipino/Filipina on the electronic staff record.
May Parsons will be remembered for being the Filipino nurse who administered the world’s first Covid-19 vaccine outside of clinical trials in December 2021. Together with NHS chief executive Amanda Pritchard, she received the George Cross on behalf of the whole NHS in July 2022 from the late Queen Elizabeth. She received the Endeavour Award at her graduation from Coventry University where she completed her MsC in Global Healthcare Management.
Dennis Singson is an award-winning advanced nurse practitioner and a mental health specialist. In 2021, he was a joint winner of the Queen’s Nursing Institute (QNI) first International Community Nurse of the Year Award together with Marc Rodriguera, another Filipino nurse specialist. He was recognised for his efforts in reducing referrals to emergency care, specialist mental health services and the use of antidepressants among patients at his GP practice. Dennis was a finalist for the 2021 RCN Mental Health Nurse of the Year award and the winner of the 2018 Windrush 70 Award for Clinical Excellence in Nursing. He is also currently the interim vice-chair of the Philippine Nurses Association UK.
Oliver Soriano is the new director of nursing and quality for The Bay within the Lancashire and the Lancashire and South Cumbria Foundation NHS Trust. He was formerly the associate director of nursing at the South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust in London. In 2020, he helped re-start the Philippine Nurses Association UK (PNA UK), one of the two Filipino nursing associations in Britain. Following the pandemic, PNA UK organised a series of webinars focusing on mental health to help members build their psychological resilience.
Jonah Atos is a senior operating nurse at Western Health and Social Care Trust in Londonderry, Northern Ireland. She is the first Filipino to join her trust in 2002, becoming the first chair of its ethnic diversity network. She was recently appointed as the first chair of the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) Northern Ireland’s Black and ethnic minority network. Between 2018 and 2022, Atos served as an international nurse coordinator responsible for providing pastoral support and training to nurses coming from overseas. In 2014, she founded the charity Kabalikat in the North West to support Filipinos living in the area.
Roderick Atos is a staff nurse at Waterside Hospital also in Londonderry, where he has been working for the past 19 years. He is an active volunteer of Kabalikat in the North West, a charity founded by his wife, Jonah.
Edmond Hernaez currently provides clinical and operational leadership as a clinical nurse manager for the outpatient department at the Royal Devon University Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust. He is a professional nurse advocate under the Chief Nurse Officers’ team and a Florence Nightingale Foundation Scholar (Windrush). He is also the co-chair of the ethnic minority network in Exeter, working to promote equality and a positive culture for all the staff.
Kyle Joshua Marasigan is a professional education manager at Gloucestershire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust. He leads the trust’s nursing preceptorship programme, supporting newly registered nurses and international nurses’ transition to professional practice. He was part of the team that launched the National Preceptorship Project for Nursing in October 2022. Passionate about diversity and inclusion, Marasigan has introduced cultural awareness training to all newly registered nurses joining their hospital.
In the charity sector, community organiser Marissa Begonia was also part of the Filipino contingent invited to the event. She is the director of The Voice of Domestic Workers, a support organisation campaigning for the rights of domestic workers in the UK. The charity offers English-language lessons, drama and art classes, and employment advice to its members.
According to a tweet by The Voice of Domestic Workers, King Charles told Begonia that “You can’t do it without the Philippines (Filipinos).”
Last but not least is Lourdes Faberes, a Manila-born actress whose credits include the multi-award-winning feature film Boiling Point (2021) and Neil Gaiman’s Netflix series The Sandman (2022). Faberes moved to the UK in 1997 to study at the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama where she gained an MA in Performance (Advanced Theatre Practice). Despite the limited opportunities for East and Southeast Asians in film, theatre and television in Britain, Faberes has built an impressive filmography to her credit.
3rd update: This article was updated to include Filipino nurse Kyle Joshua Marasigan as an attendee at the event.
Top photo credit: Oliver Soriano on Facebook
