[Between Islands] Filipino Professionals in Japan: Buds before the bloom

TOKYO, Japan – Married to a Philippine veteran, my grandmother would be doing backflips in her grave to hear this: most Filipinos now trust Japan. For her generation, the scars of the 1940s occupation were far too deep to imagine a future where the “enemy” became our closest ally. Yet the latest OCTA Research survey of 1,200 adult Filipinos from December 3 to 11, 2025 now tells a different story — 81 years after the war, eight out of ten Filipinos today say they trust Japan and the Japanese people. 

One slide shared with Rappler (see below) shows that “Filipinos generally feel warm and favorable toward Japan, with 63% expressing favorable sentiment nationwide, compared with 13% unfavorable, and 24% unsure.” The survey was commissioned by the Japanese embassy.

Courtesy of OCTA Research

That shift is not just a number in the Philippines. It is something you can feel here in Tokyo, and far beyond. Whether in an office in Osaka, a factory in Aichi, or a classroom in Fukuoka, the “enemy” of my grandmother’s generation has been replaced by the co-worker, the neighbor, and the close friend. 

From necessity to belonging 

For many Filipinos, Japan was once summed up in a familiar phrase: “Japan, Japan, sagot sa kahirapan (Japan is the answer to hardship).” For decades, the draw was pragmatic — the search for opportunity, the chance to support a family, to build a house back home. But in recent years, that economic drive has evolved into something deeper: a sense that Japan is no longer just a place to work for a year or two, but a place to belong. It’s a shift backed up by the numbers, too — in 2024, multinational survey found Filipinos topping the list of those who say they “love” Japan. 

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I can imagine many reasons for that: the delectable food, a culture rooted in respect, the reliable infrastructure, and the quiet beauty of everyday convenience. (READ: Konnichiwa! Why Japan has set a new record in visitor arrivals, and what we can learn from it)

The Filipino community in Japan is slowly changing. Like the sakura buds about to bloom, Filipino professionals carry a quiet promise that can reshape the story of the two countries. 

It is no wonder that as of October 2025, more than 260,000 Filipinos were working in Japan, making us the third-largest foreign workforce, trailing only Vietnam and China. Many are in manufacturing, services, and healthcare — sectors that sustain Japan as its population ages and its workforce shrinks. 

Filipinos are no longer confined to a single industry or stereotype. They are now the architects of modern society — literally and figuratively. You’ll find them leading green energy initiatives in Yokohama, providing essential care in Chiba, managing banks, running businesses, and even practicing law.  

Philippine Ambassador to Japan Mylene Garcia-Albano (2nd from right, sitting next to Between Islands author Ricky Sabornay) hosts a special dinner reception honoring alumni of top Philippine universities based in Japan working in various professions. 

Our journeys here are as varied as our professions. Some, like me, arrived as graduate students, while others came through corporate transfers, the JET Programme, or the Specified Skilled Worker visa. Many of us began as Mombukagakusho scholars, arriving with a thesis and staying to build a career, a home, and a family. 

Finding each other 

Three years ago, after seeing how the UP Alumni Association in the United Kingdom — a network I joined while on secondment in London — created a real anchor for Filipinos abroad I began to wonder why we didn’t have something similar in Japan. If our professionals were already here in growing numbers, why wasn’t there a space that brought us together with purpose? 

Engineers, accountants, bankers, business owners, teachers, and lawyers, young and old, meet at the Lively Bar in Tokyo in June 2023. 

I started reaching out. What began as a handful of cold LinkedIn messages eventually led to a gathering in July 2023 at The Lively Bar in Tokyo. Outside, Tokyo Tower glowed over the city, but inside the room felt warmer — engineers, accountants, business owners, teachers, all talking like old friends. Different backgrounds, different stories, yet the same quiet question hung in the air: how do we find our place in the country we now call home? 

The speed at which people connected said something important. There was relief — even hunger — for a community that had never quite existed for Filipino professionals in Japan. It became clear that this wasn’t just a social gathering, but the start of something overdue. 

The Professional Regulatory Commission (PRC), led by Charito Zamora (third from right, sitting), meets with the Filipino Professionals in Japan (FPIJ) on December 7, 2024. Courtesy of PRC Facebook

Since those first days at The Lively Bar, the network has grown in ways none of us could have predicted. What began as casual meetups has shifted into genuine community building. In February 2024, we organized an event at the Philippine Embassy attended by more than 100 professionals for a session with Professional Regulatory Commission (PRC) Chairperson Charito A. Zamora. That gathering paved the way for the PRC’s first mission to Japan later that year — a milestone that brought essential professional services directly to our community. 

A relationship reshaped by people  

These are modest developments, but they point to a larger shift in the Philippine–Japan relationship — one that rarely makes headlines. 

For decades, the relationship was defined by aid, diplomacy, and formal agreements. Today, it is increasingly shaped by people. By the Filipinos who build careers here. By the Japanese colleagues who work alongside us. By the everyday interactions that quietly rewrite old narratives. 

The surveys say Filipinos now trust Japan. But trust is no longer just a statistic or a line in an official statement. It is lived, practiced, and built in offices and classrooms, in hospitals and over dinner tables. It grows in spaces where people choose to show up for one another, proving that the strongest ties between our islands are the ones we build ourselves. 

The quiet promise of the bloom

I saw this up-close last week at the Hanami event organized by the Migrant Workers Office-Overseas Workers Welfare Administration Tokyo (MWO–OWWA Tokyo). Under the skeletal branches of sakura trees still waiting to bloom, Filipino professionals gathered alongside students, longtime residents, and workers from every sector. The scene reflected what 70 years of normalized relations have quietly made possible: mixed Filipino–Japanese families sharing food and laughter, children running between picnic blankets, and conversations flowing easily in two languages. 

Members of the Filipino Professionals in Japan join the hanami event hosted by Migrant Workers Office. 

It was a fitting backdrop for what Embassy officials saw as they moved through the crowd — a community no longer merely living in Japan, but now firmly woven into its social fabric. 

The sakura buds, still waiting to open, reminded me of the Filipino professionals around me. We’re here, but not yet fully connected. And yet, the moment we start finding one another, something shifts. A message becomes a conversation; a conversation becomes a small circle; and slowly, that circle becomes a network that begins to hold. 

I hope we keep finding each other. That this community grows not just in size, but in the way we show up and support one another. 

Like the buds before the bloom, Filipino professionals carry a quiet promise. 

And when that promise finally opens — in its own time, in its own way — it will reshape the story between our two countries more deeply than we can see right now. – Rappler.com

Ricky Aringo Sabornay is a cross-border lawyer who moves between the Philippines and Japan, helping people navigate not just different legal systems, but different ways of thinking. He runs Sabornay Law, a member firm of Uryu & Itoga, where his work sits at the intersection of two legal systems and two cultures that don’t always speak the same language. Connect with him on LinkedIn.

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