When will they stop exporting labor?

ON DISTANT SHORE
By Val G. Abelgas

In the last few weeks, the Philippines was reminded why it should start seriously reconsidering its labor export policy. Reports on the abuses that Filipina domestic helpers in the Middle East and in Asian countries suffered from their employers, including the pouring of hot water on a Filipina maid in Kuwait, and the dangers that Filipino overseas workers face in countries facing conflict crisis such as Thailand, Iraq, Syria and Libya should have moved our leaders to seriously look for viable alternatives to sending hundreds of thousands of Filipino workers as export commodities.

But it’s not just the dangers and abuses that many Filipino workers face abroad that should motivate Philippine government leaders to find ways to generate local employment for these people. It’s not just the permanent injury to children who have to grow up without their parents.

It is the wound that exporting of labor inflicts on our national pride that should finally move our leaders to find ways so that the country could minimize sending our hapless people to distant shores.

Recently, Singaporean bloggers have been telling Filipinos to their face that they are not welcome in Singapore. The online harassment forced organizers of a Philippine Independence Day celebration in a Singapore mall to cancel the event.

In Hongkong, a textbook that asks students to identify the race a particular group of people belongs to states that the correct answer to domestic helper is Filipino. Just last week, a “racist” insurance commercial depicting a male Chinese actor as a Filipina maid drew outrage on social media in Hong Kong, with groups representing the city’s legions of domestic helpers calling for an apology.

Aimed at the employers of Hong Kong’s 300,000 maids, who mainly hail from the Philippines and Indonesia, the domestic helper insurance advertisement for Malaysia’s Hong Leong Bank shows the Chinese actor wearing dark orange make-up and a curly wig as he plays clumsy maid “Maria.”

Also recently, reports that the Oxford Dictionary defines a Filipina as a domestic helper drew angry reactions in the social media.

These are not isolated reports. For years, Filipina female visitors were interviewed lengthily in Hongkong because immigration officers suspect them to be visiting the former Crown Colony to work illegally as maids. Before that, Filipinas going to Japan were thought to be “japayukis” or Filipinas working in the country’s bars and nightclubs.
The government has repeatedly protested such abuses and discriminations, but continues to send its teachers and other workers to work as maids to these countries.

In 1998, when reports on a Greek dictionary defining a Filipina as a domestic helper came out and the Philippine government protested, a leader of a group protecting immigrant rights in that Mediterranean country, said:
“The kneejerk reaction from the Philippine government makes us a laughing stock. In Greece, every rich Greek has a Filipina or two. No amount of diplomatic protest can change that image, because the reality is that as long as the Philippine government continues with its policy of exporting human resources (including domestic workers) the image will prevail. The issue at stake is why in heaven’s name do we have such an image for our women.

“A dictionary is supposed to reflect present reality. This is the reality. It has been there for decades, since the Philippine government started its policy of exporting “human resources”. Sometime in 1991, members of Parliament belonging to the New Democracy Party revolted against their party leader, saying “we are not your Filipinezas!” My reaction was to write a protest letter. Then I realized that no amount of protest could change the situation. Every time you call an MP at home, a Filipina answers the phone. The word Filipina has come to mean someone who not only comes from the Philippines, but someone who does domestic work in Greece. THAT IS THE REALITY.
 Philippine women in Greece work as domestic workers, except perhaps the Filipina staff at the Philippine embassy in Athens, who have Filipina domestics working for them.

“The Philippine government can ill afford the luxury of spending time protesting a dictionary definition. Because the Philippine government is the no. 1 exporter of domestic workers of the world,” he concluded.

Economists and even the World Bank have repeatedly warned developing countries, including the Philippines, not to depend on the inflow of remittances and foreign investments to sustain the growth momentum.

Instead of gloating over the increased remittances, it should be a cause for concern because it only means that local jobs are not available and this clearly shows that whatever growth the country is enjoying now may be temporary. What if the Middle East countries suddenly decided not to hire Filipinos because of security threats or for political reasons? Or Singapore and Hongkong suddenly decided the Sri Lankans would make better maids?

It is folly for the government to depend on overseas workers for economic growth, not to mention economic survival. The government must look at OFW deployment as a temporary solution to the country’s economic ills, and should have a clear program to generate local employment to at least stop the exodus.

Obviously, exporting labor remains a major economic policy of the Aquino government. And that is precisely the problem with the continued dependence on exported labor; it lulls both the government and the people to complacency. The government has become less serious in coming out with a more solid economic program, while the remittance-receiving families are content with receiving those monthly manna from their toiling family member and becomes passive in finding other ways to boost their income.

The recent developments in the Middle East, the worldwide recession, the recent encounters with the law of some Filipino workers, the continued abuse and exploitation of domestic workers in the Middle East and Asia, the death of Filipino workers throughout the world, and the other troubles that accompany Filipino workers worldwide should awaken the Philippine government to the reality that it cannot rely forever on remittances from these workers.

Something has to be done to stop treating Filipino labor as export, and the export of labor as economic policy. And it has to start now.

(valabelgas@aol.com)