KIMBERLY JANE T. TAN, GMANews.TV
04/03/2009 | 06:33 PM
NATION OF SLAVES. Filipino migrant groups assert that the Philippines sends out thousands of Filipino maids abroad yearly.
MANILA, Philippines - There are almost nine million Filipinos abroad – half of whom are overseas Filipino workers (OFW), yet we deny that we are a "nation of servants."
It was Hong Kong writer Chip Tsao who wrote in his March 27 column that the Philippines is "a nation of servants" who shouldn't "flex your muscles at your master, from whom you earn most of your bread and butter."
Many migrant groups, including the Center for Migrant Advocacy (CMA), Kanlungan Center Foundation, and Migrante International, have bashed Tsao for spouting this "racial slur." Nevertheless, the groups admit that the Philippines has indeed become a country of overseas domestics because of the government's labor export policy that should have never been a policy at all.
Kanlungan resource and advocacy assistant Alladin Diega did say, however, that the Philippines being called such is not a new thing.
"Tsao is not the first and will not be the last. [The] Philippines being a nation of servants is not a new thing," he told GMANews.TV on Thursday.
He said Merriam-Webster has even previously defined a Filipina as domestic help.
But both CMA and Kanlungan questioned why Filipinos are so keen on denying the fact that we do have large a number of Filipinos doing domestic work abroad.
"We react because we have too many domestic workers abroad? But we do," CMA executive director Ellene Sana told GMANews.TV in an e-mail.
This, Diega said, is what we get by letting the government deploy thousands of Filipinos everyday to other countries instead of focusing on creating jobs locally.
Institutionalizatio n of migration
The phenomenon of migration in the Philippines can be traced back to the 1970s when there was a surge in the number of Filipinos leaving for abroad.
Dante Ang, chairman of the Commission on Filipinos Overseas, said this was because then Labor Secretary Blas Ople thought of deploying Filipino workers to the Middle East to take advantage of the oil-boom and at the same time, temporarily solve the growing unemployment rate in the country.
"To the credit of the government, the policy of sending Filipino workers abroad helped defuse what could have been a social volcano," said Ang.
However, more than 30 years after migration was pegged to be a temporary stop-gap measure against unemployment, the deployment of Filipino workers still hasn't slowed down.
In an article titled "Understanding International Labor Migration in the East," published in the May-June 2007 Newsletter of the Philippine Institute for Development, Maruja Asis, director for Research and Publications of the Scalabrini Migration Center, identified the factors why Filipino migration has continued for almost four decades.
One of the reasons for this, she said, is the "institutionalizati on of migration."
The Philippine government has always been very upfront with its desire to deploy more Filipinos overseas – allowing them to lessen the number of unemployed workers while increasing the amount of dollar remittances that the country would be able to rake in.
And while it is clearly stipulated in Republic Act 8042 or the Migrant Workers and Overseas Filipinos Act of 1995 that the government "does not promote overseas employment as a means to sustain economic growth and achieve national development, " it is doing just that.
As proof, government agencies like the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA), Overseas Workers Welfare Administration and the Office of the Undersecretary for Migrant Workers Affairs of the Department of Foreign Affairs have been set up to help OFWs with their concerns.
This, Asis said, might have developed a culture of migration.
"Working abroad has become an accepted fate to most Filipinos," she said.
In fact, she said it is now unusual for a Filipino to not to aspire for a job abroad despite being faced with proof that overseas is not really a haven for the unemployed.
AN OFW REACTION
Fred Borbon
Pangita ang ebidensya, Tapos na po ang boksing, baka may papalag pa dyan, PASOK...Kuya Conrad, nanlalamig na yata ang iba nating mga kasamahan'
Papaano na iyan Ate Galo ang programa mong "Super Maid" sa Mala, permis muna baga sina Kuneho, Ikeng, at Mulong, mainit pa sa ngayon at ang pag ka "Economist" mo ay (Eh Kuya Nolly May Sabit Tayo) baka may special travel permit pa sila na ibibigay si Kabayan , ayos laang iyan.
Basta Huwag na huwag po lang liliban ng ibang bakudan at kakanain ninyo na pasukin pa ang Inay Gyera sa mga binabalak na mga SM katulad ng sa Jordan at Lebanon.Sabagay, class naman ang dating sa title pa lang kapag tinuran (wag po magagalit ang iba dyan)
Bababa po ang morale at standing ng mga Pinoy at Pinay Executives sa Inay Gyera, bakit naman po nasabi ko iyan, abay mantakin mo naman,,,, Nigerian mo ay Driver, Cook mo ay Nigerian, Nigerian mo ay Secreatary , Draftsman mo ay Nigerian, Coffe/Tea Girl mo ay Nigerian, Nigerian ang Cleaner sa office, oo nga po at Bossing mo naman ay Bitoy, tapos, ang siste po nito, kapag susuguin mo na ang sekretarya mo at Draftman na bilis bilisan ang trabaho at patama lagi ang ginagawa, papasok sa umaga ay doon pa mag aalmusal, mag kakape, kukwento pa sa kasamahan, abay 9 am na makakapag umpisa ng trabahoang mga bopols, tinamaan ng magaling....
Alam mo ang sasabihin nila at isasagot na may gatil pa ang mga litid, hihiyain kang talaga, Yes Master, Why???? why in a hurry, my maid at home is a Filipina ahh, so what........ patay na tayo dyan, saan ka pa lalagay ngayon niyan, tiyak na laylay ang bagwis mo at pakpak, tiklop pa pati mga balikat, damay damay na po.....gugustuhin pa baga nating mangyari ang ganoon. Father Billy nasaan ka, ang sermon mo ay kailangan na kailangan na...
Paging Embassy po natin sa Abuja, baka di ninyo napapansin, madami na daw po nakakalusot na SM, ang iba po ay nag lipana na daw sa V.I., maganda kung may trabaho na maganda agad dito kapag dumating, ang iba po meron man trabaho pero di skilled daw kasi hihiga lang siya habang humihinga, buti sana kung Yoga Instructress ang pinasukan, eh baka daw po JSK (Judo Sa Kama) pala ang alam, ayos lang din, kaso, sablay pa rin eh....
Paki rebisa naman po, mahigpit ang grupo ninyo sa Pilipinas sa aming ipinakikipag laban dito tungkol sa Ban Sa Nigeria, pero maluwag sa kalokohan, ano ba iyan, wala kaming kalaban laban talaga, nag lahok at nag karibok na talaga ika nga , abay gising na at malapit na po ang election, may tulog ika nga kapag tutulog tulog sa pansitan. Matanong ko nga, iyan baga mga Kuya ay di ninyo alam???
Iyan naman po ay pwedeng gawin, kantiin at repasuhin, pwede ding seryosohin, pero kung may special permit naman pala, iyon laang......wala na akong sinabi diyan....mananahimik na po laang....
Regards,
Fred Borbon
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