By JEREMAIAH M. OPINIANO
EVERY
seventh of June, a Southeast Asian archipelago commemorates the
"heroism" of compatriots who have been a visible reason for the
steady growth of their motherland's economy. The celebration is National
Migrant Workers Day, and the date's historicity is brought about by the passage
of a law to protect the rights and welfare of overseas Filipinos and their
families.
That
law, currently coded as Republic Act 10022 (Migrant Workers and Overseas
Filipinos Act, revised twice), spells out regulations for labour migration and
lays out the bureaucratic structure —found at home and abroad— that ensures
safe and orderly overseas migration. The original law, RA 8042, was a result of
the execution of a domestic worker in Singapore, Ms. Flor Contemplacion, in
March 1995. That episode created diplomatic tension between the two countries,
as well as national shame for a country that then had no enabling law for
migrant workers' protection.
The
said law helped the Philippines lay out a program on labour export that
(explicitly) facilitates Filipino workers' overseas placement in destination
countries requiring certain skills. Decades hence, to include the hard lessons
learned since Contemplacion's execution, the Philippines has now
"excelled" in migration management.
Filipinos
are now in over-200 countries and territories, in all sorts of occupations,
with their migration status either legal or irregular. Filipinos have
contributed to countries' economic growth, especially countries facing
demographic shortfalls and labour shortages. The estimated 10.3 million
overseas Filipinos have (unfortunately) become the Philippines' top export.
Their overseas migration is a response to the search for more gainful
opportunities, what with the country's agriculture and manufacturing sectors
still struggling and services being the top draw for homeland employment for
nearly two decades.
Remittances
have been the reason for overseas Filipinos' symbolic tag as heroes since a
formal labour export program (given the passage of a Philippine labour code)
began in 1974. Form the 1970s to the mid-2000s, remittances have helped shore
up the homeland economy's fiscal issues, mitigated the impacts of domestic
unemployment, and somewhat help buoy the Philippines' gross national product.
That period, spanning just over three decades, saw the Philippines'
macro-economic growth performance as "boom and bust" —like a roller
coaster, going up and down. Meanwhile, there is rising overseas migration
(including that for overseas permanent residency, depending on the migration
pathways countries offer to foreigners) and a concomitant rise of labour,
welfare, human rights and criminal / civil cases affecting Filipinos in various
hostlands. So with rising migration and remittances is a perceived growing
number of problems facing Filipinos abroad, and the corollary family-level
social costs.
However,
there is a change in the plot: since the 2008 global economic crisis, the
Philippine economy is now one of the top economic performers in the world.
Sustained gross domestic product growth, with an annual average of some 6
percent, these past ten years is slowly buoying the Philippine economy.
Coinciding that is what some demographers perceive to be a demographic
transition, where old and young dependents are lesser and the working force is
bulging in numbers. That situation gives the Philippines a chance —a 30-year
window, says some demographic projections— to drum up as many savings and
investments and have these parked at home. Overseas migration and remittances
have been contributing their share to this ongoing demographic transition,
currently through buoying local consumption.
Yet one
wonders why the stories are still the same sordid ones? The recent episode the
Philippines faced was a diplomatic standoff with Kuwait, with the former
demanding certain protections and employment regulations for Filipina domestic
workers. This four-month saga started off with the discovered massacre —body
chopped into pieces, placed in a refrigerator for a year— of Joanna Demafelis,
angering the tough President Rodrigo Duterte. After a deployment ban and
Kuwait's own issues with Philippine diplomatic authorities, a memorandum of
agreement on hiring domestic workers was signed just last month and diplomatic
relations have been restored. Implementation by Kuwaiti authorities is another
matter.
For
decades now, Filipinos abroad are still seen as those women who have found
dates online and migrated for economic security; of women as "lowly"
domestic workers or as abused spouses even after they got permanent residency;
of men who are trafficked into occupations different from what was initially in
their work contracts. Filipinos have also been seen as the bearers of the
Christian faith; the workers with a more caring attitude; the workforce who can
endure tough work conditions just to earn more and please employers; as the
behaved foreigners in certain host country societies.
Yet
what is baffling is that the storylines of the Filipino migration saga are
still perceived to be the same even in the age of social media. Filipinos
abroad being lured by Philippine real property companies is so 2000s. The sending
of boxes with souvenir items (called balikbayan boxes [balikbayan is
"returning home" in Filipino]) is already a generation old. Some
Filipinos abroad continue to display pity at their compatriots who are in
less-skilled occupations in certain host countries, with pity masqueraded as
empathy.
Filipinos'
overseas migration has already brought about socio-cultural, economic and
institutional changes in Philippine society, sociologist and historian Filomeno
Aguilar, Jr. writes in his anthology The Migration Revolution (2014). Class
structures have been reconfigured. That is the current scene of the Filipino
migration phenomenon.
Given
the current era of a Philippine economy that's in a demographic transition
which runs side-by-side with overseas migration, what can be the new Philippine
future beside the exodus? Can new stories about Filipinos abroad be told
instead of sticking to usual tales?
Will
Filipino food, for example, be mainstreamed in host societies and capture the
imagination of nostalgic and curious foreign taste buds? Will there be more of
a new breed of Filipino migrant entrepreneurs braving the riskier agricultural
sector back home, while Filipino banks are averse in handing out credit to that
sector?
With
social media easily bridging transnational Filipino families, what kinds of
family rearing tales have we not heard from those who endured parental
separation and found successes? In some Filipino rural communities, kinship and
community embeddedness mitigate the risks of migration's family-level social
costs. With Japan having a long history of Filipinas going there as
entertainers in night clubs, and that migration pathway stopped over a decade
ago, have the Japanese of today looked at Filipinos differently?
How
many more Filipinos will become elected leaders in countries that realized
these first elected migrant leaders, like the United States, New Zealand, Korea
or Canada?
Have
you heard of a full-blooded Australian being deeply affected by the ongoing
Philippine war on drugs and helping resolve a Filipino relative's drug-related
woes? Or what about some Filipinas, already permanent residents and naturalized
citizens in a destination country, dating with compatriot seafarers docking on
some ports?
There
can be a myriad of good and bad tales about the overseas Filipino. People
aspire for more pleasant stories, especially since Filipinos are known for
extending their personal boundaries and fits of empathy. Filipinos also aspire
for less of the tear-jerking stories —from abused domestic workers to Filipino
permanent residents who are duping compatriots on temporary work visas. With
Filipinos abroad now an influential force for their motherland, and them being
exposed to better systems abroad, how can gruesome migration tales be changed
for the better?
The
homeland and its institutions, especially the Philippine government, have their
work cut out to fulfill ambitions of comfortable living for Filipinos. But so
do Filipinos abroad: they can chart newer tales and tumble down ageing
stereotypes of themselves. That will be through the love they usually show to
their families, through better remittance management, through improved and
sustained relations with locals in host countries, and through a renewed sense
of Filipino citizenship even while they're away.
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