HONG KONG - With last month's election of new president Benigno "Noynoy"
Aquino, many in the Philippines hope the long-time legislator will enact
policies that generate more local jobs and curb the exodus of Filipinos who
seek richer economic opportunities overseas.
Between 9 million and 11 million overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) scattered
across the globe send home billions of dollars every year that are crucial to
the Philippine economy. At the same time, some economists and analysts believe
the mounting outward trend risks undermining the country's long-term economic
potential.
Outgoing Philippine President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo aggressively promoted the
export of cheap Filipino labor to
wealthier global countries, although there was no direct admission that it was
a deliberate government policy during her nine-year administration.
Since the Philippines first started vigorously exporting labor in the 1970s,
coinciding with the oil boom in the Middle East, no period has seen so many
Filipinos leave the country in pursuit of work than under Arroyo. In 2006,
annual overseas deployment of workers passed the one million mark and foreign
remittances outpaced official development assistance and foreign direct
investment flows combined.
Foreign remittances helped to keep the economy afloat throughout the recent
global recession, which hit the Philippines less severely than other
export-geared regional countries. An estimated 11 million overseas Filipino
workers (OFWs) sent home around US$16 billion in 2009. That figure represented
15 times the amount attracted in new foreign direct investment (FDI).
Arroyo's government often referred to OFWs as "modern-day heroes", not least
because OFW remittances to their families helped to sustain domestic
consumption and preserve the country's foreign reserves during the global
economic downturn. This despite harrowing tales of abuse and exploitation,
particularly among household service workers, the Philippines top labor export.
At the end of 2006, Arroyo ordered amendments to the policy of sending domestic
helpers overseas as a result of thousands of Filipinos who were repatriated
from then war-torn Lebanon. Tales of abuse emerged as Lebanon's "jumping
ladies" told how they sought ways to escape high-rise buildings because their
employers locked them up to prevent them from fleeing the country.
The revised policy increased the minimum age requirement for domestic helpers
to 23 from 18, ordered mandatory skills training, and set a minimum US$400
monthly wage standard, all aimed at improving the lot of exported household
workers. Recruitment agencies strongly protested the amendment, particularly
the minimum wage requirement, which they argued would reduce their
competitiveness against other labor-exporting countries.
Then labor secretary Arturo Brion said the policy was geared to end the
country's controversial reputation as the domestic helper capital of the world
and indicated that the government aimed to focus more on the deployment of
higher-paid professionals, including medical, technical and office workers.
Data from the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA), however,
shows that household service workers are still the Philippines top labor export
to Middle Eastern nations and Hong Kong, both among the top five OFW
destinations.
"The plan to deploy more professionals instead of household service workers has
not worked," said Manny Geslani, a Manila-based recruitment consultant. Some
manpower agencies have defied the policy, he said, by resorting to a practice
known as "contract-substitution", which forces workers to sign two different
contracts, one in the Philippines to comply with the policy and another upon
arrival in the host country at a lower salary.
Jeremiah Opiniano, head of the Institute for Migration and Development Issues,
asserts that low-skilled workers, rather than professionals, are still far and
away the country's top annual remitters. Remittances grew more than a third, to
$17.3 billion from $12.8 billion, between 2006 and 2009 and now account for
one-tenth of the country's gross domestic product (GDP), according to a study
overseen by Opiniano.
The rising deployment of OFWs has failed to ease high structural unemployment
at home, where millions of new graduates are still unable to find work every
year, while the billions of dollars remitted every year by OFWs have also
largely failed to translate into grassroots economic development because many
families save rather than invest the funds, he said.
With the Arroyo government's inability to translate those remittances into
self-sustaining well-paid jobs many OFWs took up what is now being referred to
locally as "migration philanthropy".
About 4,000 out of an estimated 12,000 Filipino-led organizations abroad are
now giving back to their hometowns in the Philippines, according to the
Economic Resource Center for Overseas Filipinos. Their charity activities
include initiatives to build classrooms, donating medical equipment,
bankrolling microfinance ventures, and even funding relief operations for
calamity-stricken areas.
Opiniano said that with a new elected government, the country should move to
lessen its "addiction" to labor exports and "use remittances to help build
self-sufficiency". "If we continually rely on overseas jobs and on remittances
like previous presidents, I don't see the Philippines moving forward anytime
soon."
Incoming president Aquino intimated on the campaign trail that outward
migration should be dictated more by personal choice than by economic push
factors. "It might not match those in other countries, but with the added
benefit of having your family here and you are a first class citizen here ...
we might have enough who will decide to stay [in the Philippines]," he told
reporters.
Many Filipino groups based abroad backed Aquino's rival, Senator Manuel Villar,
during the election campaign because of his much publicized work among OFWs.
They have criticized Aquino for his apparent lack of a clear-cut OFW program.
During the three-month campaign for overseas absentee voting, Aquino did not
leave the country to woo Filipino voters overseas - a move seen by some groups
as an indication that Aquino does not consider OFW issues a policy priority.
Cher S Jimenez is a Filipino journalist based in Hong Kong. She wrote for
the Business Mirror in Manila, Gulf News Manila Bureau, The Associated Press
and GMA7 online. She was a Yuchengco media fellow at the University of San
Francisco where she conducted research on undocumented Filipino migrants in
2007.
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