Philippine Airlines Sends a Kababayan Home for Christmas: Inside the FIS Wishing Tree 2024
A roundtrip Singapore–Manila ticket, granted to one Filipina in SG, courtesy of Philippine Airlines and the FIS Ultimate Christmas Wishing Tree. The story of how one wish came true.
Christmas in Singapore for an OFW can hit different ways. Some of us fly home for two weeks. Some of us video-call relatives huddled around a Noche Buena spread we can’t reach. And some of us, because of cost, work schedules, or visa rules, just don’t go home at all that year.
For one kababayan this December, that changed.
Through the FIS Ultimate Christmas Wishing Tree 2024, a community campaign run by Filipinos in Singapore (FIS) where members submit wishes and sponsors grant them, Philippine Airlines stepped in and made one of those wishes come true. A roundtrip Singapore–Manila–Singapore economy ticket, valued at USD 685, given to one Filipina in our community so she could spend Christmas with family in the Philippines.
Today, December 16, we walked into PAL’s Singapore office on Selegie Road with the wisher to make it official.
The wishing tree, in case you missed it
Every December, FIS runs a community-driven gift-giving campaign. Members submit a wish, some practical (a microwave, a winter jacket for a return-to-PH trip), some emotional (a hot Jollibee meal for a domestic worker who hasn’t had one in a year), and some big (a flight home to see family). The wishes go up on a digital Wishing Tree at web.filipinos.sg/my-christmas-wish, and sponsors. Filipino-friendly brands and businesses in Singapore and beyond, step in to grant them.
In 2024, the Wishing Tree drew sponsors across food, retail, services, and travel. The Philippine Airlines flight was one of the most-wished-for items on the list.
The formal awarding at PAL Singapore (35 Selegie Road), with the FIS Editorial team, the Wishing Tree winner, and the Philippine Airlines Singapore staff.
Why this matters
For Filipinos working abroad, Christmas isn’t a holiday so much as a measurement. How long has it been since you went home? How many birthdays did you miss this year? How many Noche Buena selfies did you watch from a small screen in a quiet HDB room?
A flight home is more than a flight. It’s a year-end reset. It’s a hug from your nanay that no remittance can buy. It’s the smell of pancit malabon at your tita’s table, the noise of cousins in the living room, the kid you haven’t seen in a year suddenly running up to you.
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The certificate in hand, a real ticket to spend Christmas with family in the Philippines.
What Philippine Airlines did this December, in partnership with Filipinos in Singapore, wasn’t a marketing gesture. It was an actual ticket, in someone’s hand, in time for Christmas. That’s the kind of partnership our community remembers.
To Philippine Airlines: thank you
To Jemma, Malen, and the PAL team that championed this internally, maraming salamat. The Filipino community in Singapore felt this. The wisher will fly home this Christmas because of your "yes," and the ripple from that one trip, the family she’ll see, the Christmas she’ll have, the photos she’ll bring back, belongs partly to you.
To everyone reading: if you’re an OFW in SG who didn’t make a wish this year, the Wishing Tree comes back next December. And if you’re a brand that wants to partner with FIS on community campaigns like this one, our Advertise page is the door.
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Mabuhay ang Filipino. Maligayang Pasko sa lahat., FIS Editorial.
Reservations & SG ticketing: for current contact details and ticketing services in Singapore, see the official PAL Singapore page on philippineairlines.com
