There is a universal type of anger reserved for the person who finishes the milk and places the empty carton back in the fridge. It’s a blatant betrayal. A small, plastic monument to inconsideration. I was contemplating this while holding a suspiciously light carton in my hand, when a thought drifted in: What would standup comedian Imah Dumagay make of this? As the Gulf's most famous funny Filipina, I assumed she’d find the tragedy in it—and the farce. She’d spin it into comedic gold, and we’d all laugh in recognition of the tiny, hollow disappointments that scaffold our days. This, I realised, is her particular genius. A girl from Cotabato, Philippines, Imah Dumagay loves quiet mornings with coffee and can spend hours people-watching, turning quirks into stories in her head. She moved to Dubai in 2007, securing a spot on the corporate ladder, and has since become one of the first comedians to represent the Philippines in the Middle East—a profession where women are often told to stay within the punchlines, not deliver them. Her milestone moments are stitched together with equal parts grit and grace: a breakthrough set at the Global Comedy Fest in 2018 (“1,800 people, and I was the only woman”), a sold-out solo show titled 'Imah’s Day Off' at the Theatre Mall of the Emirates in 2020, a deeply personal hour called 'Rice & Sand,’ and the UAE’s Golden Visa—giving her a ten-year endorsement of the space she has carved out for herself and others.
Away from the microphone, she insists she is simply a wife, a daughter, a sister, a friend. “And sometimes the comedian part feels like the least of it,” she says, “compared to how loud and funny my family is back home.” This is the foundational soil of her humour: a family home in the Philippines, filled with merciless teasing and stories told with such detailed re-enactments and sound effects that laughter was the very glue that held them together. It was a world away from the gleaming, formidable skyline of Dubai, where she arrived chasing independence and finding, instead, a potent cocktail of amazement and invisibility. “I cried in secret a lot,” she confesses. She started as an advertising assistant, then moved to banking, a world of recovery and collections, of stable salaries and predictable trajectories. But the itch was there, a persistent whisper beneath the corporate hum.
It was a New Year’s resolution, a casual enrollment in a stand-up class that finally tipped the scales. Comedy, she discovered, was her “true love.” The leap from the stability of the corporate world to the uncertainty of the stage required, by her own admission, “courage and a bit of insanity.” She fought with herself, doubted herself, and then, on the very first day of her newfound unemployment, she stepped into the light. “My legs were shaking like there was an earthquake only I could feel,” she recalls. But then, the sound. The laughs. And suddenly, the fear dissolved, or at least, didn’t matter.

In a city-state where imported A-lists often headline and certain lines are simply not crossed, her comedy is a masterclass in navigating the spaces between. She operates within the unspoken boundaries and turns them into a creative challenge. Her weapon of choice is the stiletto of sharp, observational wit. She learned this the hard way, through the brutal refining fire of open mic nights where jokes go to either flourish or die a swift, humbling death. “I go, I test, I bomb, I adjust,” she says with a shrug that almost audibly defies the sting of failure. “Jokes are living things—they grow, they mutate, sometimes they die.”
The path, it turned out, was not perpetually lit by laughter. There have been gigs for ten people, and for audiences who just wanted to eat their dinner in peace, unaware of the comedic interloper in their midst. “But those nights sharpen you,” she insists. “If I survived that, I can survive anything.” It speaks to a spirit that understands the biggest misconception about her profession: “That we’re funny 24/7. We’re not clowns at the supermarket. Some days we’re quiet, some days we’re broken.”
Her most potent material draws from the duality of her existence, a life she has aptly titled Rice & Sand. “Rice is where I came from. Sand is where I am now,” she explains. “Two worlds, one me.” On stage, she navigates the complexities of being a Filipina in the Middle East—a perspective that is both rare and heavily scrutinised, but she carries the flag with an honesty that disarms and connects. Her now-signature opener—"I am from the Philippines but I am not taking any orders tonight"—is a perfect strike. It’s a line born from the repeated experience of being mistaken for a waitress just moments before she is announced as the headline act. It’s a joke that acknowledges the stereotype, then deftly subverts it, holding up a mirror to the audience’s own lazy assumptions. She isn’t angry about the stereotype itself but about the differential treatment that so often accompanies it. This is the core of her advocacy: a relentless, good-natured campaign for basic respect, delivered with a smile.

As for my empty milk carton? It’s a trifle, a speck. But in the grand, hilarious, and often heartbreaking tapestry of life that Imah Dumagay so brilliantly narrates, it’s precisely these specks that matter. They are the details that make her stories breathe, and her audiences feel seen. When the house lights come up, she hopes they carry with them a simple, profound truth: “They are not alone. And sometimes, the absurdity of life is exactly what makes it worth laughing at.”