The Day Halo Halo Naked Cyclists and Fifteen Years of Fighting Met in Front of Parliament By Menchie
- thevoiceofdomesticworkers
- 11 hours ago
- 6 min read
Almost a year. That is how long I have been a member of the Voice of Domestic Workers, and in that time I have attended events that have moved me, rallies that have strengthened my resolve, and gatherings that have reminded me why this community is unlike anything else I have ever been part of. But the family picnic in front of the House of Parliament stands apart from all of them. It was joyful and powerful and surprising in equal measure, and it gave me a memory I will be telling people about for the rest of my life.
The setting alone carried a significance that was impossible to overlook. The Houses of Parliament rising behind us, ancient and imposing, the very place where the laws governing our lives as domestic workers are written and debated and decided. And there we were, in front of it all, spreading out our food and our laughter and our fifteen years of collective determination, claiming that space as our own for an afternoon. There is something quietly defiant and deeply meaningful about a group of domestic workers choosing joy in the shadow of the institution they are asking to see them more clearly. We were not there to be invisible. We were there to be seen, to be heard, and to celebrate how far we have come.
The gathering brought together an extraordinary coalition of organisations.
The Voice of Domestic Workers alongside Kalayaan, Migrante, FDWA UK, and UDWA, different names and different approaches but all of us united by the same fundamental belief that domestic workers deserve dignity, rights, and the legal protections that would make both possible. Standing among so many people who share that belief, who have given their time and their energy and their voices to this cause from different angles and through different channels, felt like standing inside something with real weight and real momentum behind it.
Our director, Marissa Begonia, spoke, and as always her words carried the particular power of someone who has dedicated herself completely to this fight and who speaks not from a distance but from the very heart of it. She has walked every step of this journey alongside the members she serves, and when she speaks about fifteen years of fighting for domestic workers' rights, she speaks as someone who has lived every one of those years with her whole self. Her message was one of celebration and of continued determination, honouring how much has been achieved while keeping the eyes of the community fixed firmly on how much still remains to be done.
Other groups shared their messages too, each one adding another voice to a chorus that grew richer and more powerful with every contribution. Fifteen years is not a small thing. Fifteen years of showing up, of organising, of refusing to accept that domestic workers should be treated as less than fully human in the eyes of the law. Fifteen years of campaigns and rallies and legal battles and community building and the quiet daily work of supporting members who need help navigating a system that has not always been designed with their wellbeing in mind. That history deserves to be celebrated loudly and with great happiness, which is exactly what we did.
And then came the food. There is no community gathering without food, and this one was generous beyond measure. Dishes were shared freely, passed between hands, offered to anyone who needed them, in the way that always happens when domestic workers come together because generosity is simply part of who we are. We spend our working lives feeding others and caring for others, and when we are among our own people that instinct does not disappear. It expresses itself differently, more freely and with more joy, but it is always there.
The moment that drew the longest lines and the most excitement was the arrival of halo halo, brought by the Migrante group and offered to every single person present. If you have never had halo halo, you cannot fully understand what it meant to have it appear at a picnic in front of the Houses of Parliament on a summer afternoon. It is the taste of home. Shaved ice and sweetened beans and coconut and leche flan and ube ice cream, a combination that makes no sense to anyone who did not grow up with it and makes perfect sense to everyone who did. The queue that formed was long and completely worth it, and the first spoonful tasted like the Philippines and like memory and like being known and like belonging, all at the same time. In that moment, standing in front of one of the most British landmarks in the world with a cup of halo halo in my hand, I felt the two parts of my life meet in a way that was unexpectedly and completely beautiful.
And then, just as the performances were continuing and the afternoon was settling into its happy rhythm, something happened that nobody had planned for. On the other side of the road, a biking parade appeared. And the cyclists were naked. Every single one of them, riding past in cheerful and completely unashamed celebration of whatever it was they were celebrating, while the crowd at our picnic erupted into shocked laughter and delighted cheering. Nobody knew what to do except exactly what everyone did, which was to stare and laugh and cheer and make it part of the day, because when something unexpected and absurd and joyful interrupts your afternoon, the only sensible response is to let it make you happier.
The show continued on our side of the road without missing a beat. Groups performed, songs were sung, and then the Voice of Domestic Workers took the space and danced Hawak Mo ang Beat, that song that has become something of an anthem for this community, a declaration of rhythm and resilience and the refusal to be still. We danced in front of Parliament, in full view of the building where our futures are debated, with halo halo cups still in some people's hands and the memory of naked cyclists still making people smile, and it was perfect. It was so completely, imperfectly, joyfully perfect.
All of that joy is what the right to change employer without restriction is ultimately in service of. Because a domestic worker who is free, who is not trapped in a household she cannot leave without losing her legal standing, can be fully present in a moment like this one. She can dance and laugh and eat halo halo in front of Parliament without part of her mind pulling her back toward fear. Freedom from employer restriction is freedom to inhabit your own life completely.
Fifteen years of fighting has been built on the shoulders of workers who kept renewing their commitment to this cause even when the system did not renew its commitment to them. The right to renew the Overseas Domestic Worker Visa is the most direct expression of what that faithfulness deserves in return. It says that the workers who have given so much to this country are worth keeping, that their presence here is valued enough to protect, that the community built over fifteen years of struggle deserves the continuity that only secure visa status can provide.
The right to settlement is the next step on that road. It is the point at which fifteen years of fighting becomes fifteen years of belonging, when the history of showing up and demanding dignity is rewarded with the security of knowing you can stay. Settlement transforms the story from one of endurance into one of arrival, and that transformation is what this community has been working toward through every rally and every picnic and every dance performed in front of the most powerful buildings in the land.
And the right to British citizenship is the horizon that gives all fifteen years their fullest meaning. It is the recognition that the people who have fought this hard, who have built this much, who have brought halo halo to the gates of Parliament and danced their hearts out in front of the lawmakers, belong to this country as completely as this country belongs to them. Citizenship is not the end of the fight. But it is one of its most important destinations.
Almost a year as a member and I already know that this community has changed me.
It has given me belonging and purpose and the kind of memories that sit in the best corner of your heart and stay warm for years. Family picnics in front of Parliament with naked cyclists providing the unexpected entertainment and halo halo queues stretching across the pavement and the sound of Hawak Mo ang Beat rising up into the summer air.
Fifteen years of fighting. And we are just getting started.
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