English Article　２

Witness by Filipina in Japan

A Filipina Adventist made a great witness in her community in Saijo City, Ehime Prefecture, Shikoku in Japan by passing the Japanese National Nurse Examination held on February 19, 2012 in Japan.

It was announced on March 26, 2012 that Miss Ana Catolico was one of forty-seven foreigners who were able to pass the Japanese National Nurse Examination in Japanese.  There were four hundred fifteen foreign nurses who challenged to pass the examination, but only 11.3% was the passing rate.  Her great success was widely reported through local TV broadcasting and local newspaper (see Photo 1: left, Ms Kyoko Ito; right, Miss Ana Catolico).

Ana was already nurse in her country, Philippines.  Before coming to Japan, she worked as nurse in Saudi Arabia for two years.  Then, she came to Japan based on Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) between Japan and Philippines to work as nurse in May, 2010 and began to study Japanese.  After studying Japanese for half a year in Osaka City, she was assigned to Aijukai Hospital in Saijo City and began to work as nurse aid.  In Japan foreign nurses cannot work as nurse without passing the Japanese National Nurse Examination.  Therefore, she continued to study Japanese and prepared for the examination.  As she failed it in February 2011, she decided to study Japanese so hard and mastered a lot of technical terms.  She spent almost whole day of working day to prepare for the examination from the summer of 2011 by the help of Ms Kyoko Ito, head nurse of the hospital.

Ana said, “There are many Filipina nurses who go to Canada and the United State of America.  EPA is a good opportunity for me to come to Japan.  I wanted to pass the Japanese National Nurse Examination that is said the most difficult one.”  Ms Ito admired her by saying, “I was very glad with tears as I found Ana’s success in the examination.  She has strong will and can challenge for anything.”  Ana was one of forty-six nurses of second batch who came to Japan from the Philippines based on EPA and only four among them passed the examination.  For the sake of information, the number of the first batch from the Philippines was one hundred and only nine passed the examination.

As I attended to the Seventh-day Adventist Imabari Church on April 14, 2012 and met Ana at my first time and listened to her testimony.  Then, I told her, “Your family name is Catolico, isn’t it?  I know Pastor Catolico who is Communication Director of the Southern Asia-Pacific Division.”  Surprisingly enough, she responded me, “He is my uncle.”  Our Adventist world is really small.  On this Sabbath she served as pianist during the church service.  Although most of the Imabari church members are aged people, it is good for her that there is another young lady, Miss Hak En, Chinese from Xibian City of Sahnnxi Province in China, who is working as office lady at a company in Imabari City (see Photo 2:left, writer; center, Miss Hak En; right, Miss Ana Catolico).  (Reported by Tadaomi Shinmyo living in Imabari City, Ehime Prefecture, Shikoku in Japan)