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No, she’s not living her dream. After she brought honor to the Philippines last year for winning The X-Factor Israel, Rose Fostanes now faces poverty and is very upset by it.
“I’m disappointed,” says Fostanes in an interview conducted for Haaretz. “I thought my dream would really come true and I’d have a music career. The thing that really makes me sad is that when I went on stage for the first time I was totally insecure and I thought I had no chance, but then things started to change and I started to believe in myself. It was a wonderful feeling, to be given an opportunity. But then things turned out the way they did and I feel terrible again.”
With the promise of a good career after winning the show then, it’s a far cry from how Fostanes lives now: a small space with little light and cluttered with cardboard packing boxes and a plain twin bed. While this is rather common for many overseas Filipino workers, it wasn’t supposed to be this way for Fostanes who won a nationwide talent competition. Even worse than her deplorable condition, though, is the fact that she may soon be deported from the country.
Fostanes wowed the judges in her audition in 2014 with her rendition of Shirley Bassey’s “This is My Life.” She was well-loved by the judges and fans alike and she also helped to send the ratings sky-high.
After winning, Fostanes and the people from Reshet television and the Aroma Music production company, which represents the X-Factor winners, then began trying to persuade the Interior Ministry to grant her permission to remain in Israel and perform here, despite her status as a migrant worker. She was given a special visa to enable her to stay in Israel and also work as a singer.
Fostanes left her job and regular salary to pursue her dream career, but things did not turn out so well. The contract, dictated to Reshet and Aroma Music by Simon Cowell’s Syco Entertainment company, which developed the X-Factor format, did not necessarily work in Fostanes’s favor.
For example, the contract states that in the three years it is in effect, the artist will only perform at events approved by Aroma Music. But Aroma Music, wanting to maintain Fostanes’s new star status, prevented her from performing at the smaller venues she was used to, and from which she could have earned a living. She wasn’t able to earn profits from her performances in in Acre, Tiberias, and Australia. She was left with just the NIS 90,000 (a little over P1M) that she won in the competition, spread out over 18 months, leaving her with just NIS 3,000-4,000 monthly (after deducting a NIS 15,000 loan she needed right at the beginning)–similar to what she was making as a caregiver.
The contract also states that the company will release an album by the winner, but this may also be reduced to just a single or two. Fostanes’s debut single, “Walk Away,” didn’t go so well with music fans.
Aroma Music apparently tried to boost Fostanes’s career, but her shows attracted only small crowds. Even when she came back to the Philippines for her debut album, even though she was doing well, Fostanes went back to Israel, thus leaving her career mid-stream. When asked why she didn’t pursue her career in her homeland, she answered, “I didn’t win the audience’s love in the Philippines. I won in Israel and I want to give back to the audience that chose me. When I asked the people at Aroma Music why they weren’t producing an album for me, they said there isn’t enough demand for songs in English, but from the reactions I get from people all the time, I can see that people definitely want to hear me.”
Back in Israel, it appeared that things were going to work out when Aroma Music submitted a request for an artist visa for her, but now the authorities say that the company withdrew its visa request, which leaves Fostanes without legal status in Israel. Fostanes’s current visa expired a month ago. Aroma Music said that since she did not produce profits for them, they cannot request an artist visa for her, which would require them to pay her a monthly salary for a year. They don’t believe that Rose could make a living during this year from music alone.
All hope is not lost, though. Fostanes continues to hope that because people in Israel do want to hear her, she will be able to perform. Another possibility is that she could obtain an artist visa through a new manager who would sponsor her and pay her a regular salary.
“I’m ready to do whatever it takes,” says Fostanes. “I know I’m not that beautiful and I know that I’m not the typical singer that everyone’s looking for, but I believe that if I’m just given the opportunity, I’ll prove that I can succeed. I understand the situation that I’m in and the only thing I hope is that the people in the Interior Ministry will understand that I’m a human being just like them, that they’ll understand how important this opportunity is that they can give me.”
