Osang is the real deal.

“I feel that everybody is looking at me like an alien,” said Israel X Factor Champion Rose “Osang” Fostanes in one of the earlier audition episodes of the hit British show franchise. Once part of a faceless crowd of foreign workers who tend to Israel’s aged and ailing, Osang took both Israel and the Philippines by storm when she bested three other finalists of the famous talent show.

Photo courtesy of timesofisrael.com

In the hype of the fame that is Osang, I find it comical that many have likened her victory to that of American Idol’s Jasmine Trias, Jessica Sanchez, and other Filipino-blooded contestants and finalists alike in foreign talent shows. “The Philippines has produced global vocal powerhouses even before reality singing programs like American Idol’s Jasmine Trias and Jessica Sanchez,” Yahoo PH News claimed in an article about Osang’s victory. Obviously, some people need to work on their analogy, because, you see, “produced” is a very delicate word.

Osang’s is not a story of Pinoy Pride caked in some half or quarter blood Pinoy who can barely speak Filipino. Hers is a story of a full-blood Pinoy – one who was born and raised Filipino. Not a story of a halfhearted Filipino who sings her way to become America’s Idol; but a story of an overseas working Filipino who joins Israel X Factor in the hope that “her popularity will shine a spotlight on Israel's low-paid foreign workers, who include about 20,000 Filipinos,” and this, for me, is the story of a real Filipino-produced powerhouse.

For many Israelis and even other foreigners, the word “Filipino” has somewhat become synonymous with caregiver, or house maid. True, we send hundreds of thousands of Filipinos to work abroad, but this shouldn’t stop us from trying to break the stereotype given to us, and ultimately, this shouldn’t stop us from trying to become more than what we are expected to be.

Being abroad means being exposed to more opportunities to be better and to show to people what Filipinos can do, besides working.

There is a certain pride in Osang’s victory, one that I reckon will last, because hers is a story beyond fame – it is a story of purpose, of breaking free from the label that is “Filipino caregiver”. And while she may have felt that everybody seemed to look at her like an alien when she went up that Israeli stage in the beginning of the competition, surely, she will feel no less than a native when she performs in front of a crowd that has conjured her victory.