Wyndham dairy farm manager Ariane Latanafrancia, his wife Christine and sons Sar, 19, and Christiane, 13, took the oath in February.
Mr Latanafrancia, who came to the country in 2014, said the citizenship ceremony was an achievement that made all their hard work all worth it.
"We work hard for it, so we’re pretty happy, it’s a success for us really," he said.
Before Southland, he worked two and a-half years in a dairy farm in Saudi Arabia, which was a very different experience.
He was not able to bring his family to the Middle East and he lived and worked in an isolated compound, four hours from the city, with no car, looking after 21,000 cows.
After coming to New Zealand, he said his then farm-owner boss encouraged him to bring his family over as soon as possible, and they joined a year later.
"I grew up without a father, so I was trying for them not to experience that," he said.
Mrs Latanafrancia worked hard too, milking cows on the farm, working at a freezing works, on a tulip farm and is now in her fifth year at the Wyndham Foursquare.
Her husband said they had a "give and take" philosophy when it came to their work ethic.
"You give us the opportunity, then we give you the hardest work that we can give," he said.
The free healthcare and education in Aotearoa was the reward, he said.
Sar was once deputy head boy at Menzies College and now studies civil engineering at the Southern Institute of Technology Gore campus.
He said after going to primary school in the Philippines, Lumsden Primary School was pretty different and as the only Filipino at the school, was a bit of a culture shock.
"It’s a bit of a culture shock but as time goes on you settle down," his father said.
As is their cultural tradition, they continue to send money to their family back home.
Things were especially tough in the Philippines right now, he said.
Their home country was experiencing a rising cost-of-living and corruption is still "number one".
He has brought one cousin over to work with him at Ferguson Farms and they now have many friends in Wyndham from the same Visayas region.
Mr Latanafrancia coaches the Menzies basketball team, to give back to the community, and is proud of his work at Ferguson Farms.
"We’re proud of what we’re doing and how we do things," he said.
