Wednesday, March 16, 2016

WORKING ABROAD: OFW REMITTANCES AND THE TRADE-OFFS - DEHUMANIZATION, CHINESE RACISM TOWARD FILIPINOS...WHAT SHOULD WE DO AND START WITH....


“Where justice is denied, where poverty is enforced, where ignorance prevails, and where any one class is made to feel that society is an organized conspiracy to oppress, rob and degrade them, neither persons nor property will be safe.” -

– Frederick Douglass, American Abolitionist, Lecturer, Author and Slave, 1817-1895)


*****************************************
NOTES TO READERS:  Colored and/or underlined words are HTML links. Click on them to see the linked posts/articles. Forwarding this and other posts to relatives and friends, especially those in the homeland, is greatly appreciated. To share, use all social media tools: email, blog, Google+, Tumblr,Twitter,Facebook, etc. THANKS!!
Click the following underlined title/link to checkout these Essential/Primary Readings About Us Filipino Natives:
****************************************

March 8, 2019 UPDATE:

Under the current Duterte regime, the same has continued and worsening. It looks like the "fate" of our fellow native Filipinos in our homeland is towards a seemingly endless downward spiral, or slide in the slippery slope of perdition. 

Our Native Filipino Politics Today, March 8, 2019


- Bert

********

Hi All,

Started during the Marcos Dictatorship, native Filipino citizens were developed into the primary export commodity of our homeland as Contract/Overseas Foreign Workers [CFWs/OFWs] for several reasons: OFW remittances are foreign currencies/dollars to pay for our foreign debts; contract jobs abroad --however menial-- serve as a social relief valve, else more massive unemployment of schooled Filipinos amid rising expectations is potentially a big problem that may result in social upheaval or revolutionary situation as before Proclamation 1081 (Marcos' Martial Law); and of course, more remittances supplement the government coffers for thievery in public institutions/offices, etc. . Oftentimes, these Contract/Overseas Foreign Workers are our women, including college educated ones, as domestic helpers (maids).
The attached documentary video shows our OFWs in Hong Kong with their predicaments in their work environment. Unfortunately too, our weak state/government for aforementioned reasons either can not or will not stop the abuses and/or dehumanization our OFWs encounter abroad (including murder by employers or by the foreign country, Singapore and Saudi Arabia,)

For this post, click below URL/Title to watch the featured Video About:


Not to mention the numerous abuses, corruption and neglect committed by our Philippine government''s Oversea Workers Welfare Administration (OWWA).

See related news on these government abuses and/or neglect, click these two URLs:
:
http://migranteinternational.org/…/gma-sued-for-plunder-of…/

The lack of available and/or decent jobs in our homeland force over 10 million fellow native citizens to leave family and home to work abroad to earn enough to survive and provide support for their families. We are not even addressing the downside consequences to the social fabric of the affected families and therefore of our society as a whole.
It saddens and angers me that all the subsequent governments/regimes post-Marcos, post-EDSA "People Power" have come to nothing, as far as the promised --during each election campaigns-- purposes for the peoples' common good; and which in fact, worsened significantly, thanks to our native rulers from Cora Aquino, Fidel Ramos, Erap Estrada, Gloria Macpagal-Arroyo, and Penoy Aquino.
All these guys even want to change the 1987 Constituion [CHACHA,etc] to remove the few remaining articles with nationalistic content/provisions which would complete the legality of foreign dominance (without the use of native dummies/traitors). As far as I know, no other independent country allows unlimited entry and residency of foreigners and their ownership of native lands and resources, for which their nationalistic citizenry reserves for posterity. Those among us who are beholden to foreigners, in our own homeland, are put simply, traitors.
I expect no change whichever face replace Penoy after May 2016 elections with their absolute support for WTO/globalization: privatization (selling off public/govt assets), removing all barriers to imports (killed our native agricultural and nascent, light industries,etc.) which in turn led to massive unemployment; and easy influx of Chinese, and other foreigners for business and residency.
During these same years, tourism then and now, call centers are much hyped, but have they prospered and/or pay enough to support decent livelihood and keep our natives wanting to stay in the homeland? Call cwnters employees working in fancy, modern buildings,but coming home to their overcrowded homes or over-priced apartments.
We native Filipinos need to inform ourselves, to understand "what is really going on," that it is not fate or God's will for the massive impoverishment, ignorance and illiteracy that result in this vicious circle of poverty for the majority. And let us not equate our present deprivations and sufferings as preconditions to an eternally rewarded afterlife. This last, I feel and think, is a disgusting teaching of the Catholic Church that is constantly beaten into the hearts and minds of the nonthinking, God-fearing native Filipino.
For us so-called educated. we need to know to understand and look beyond our family and clan, and lead to influence and assert our citizenship by demanding from the supposedly elected officials their responsibilities to work for social justice and the "common good" of.the citizenry.
Since the Marcos Dictatorship and his successor Cora Aquino, resident and illegal aliens/foreigners have greatly multiplied in our homeland; courtesy of our un-nationalistic politicians and government officials. Foreigners who came and easily dominate our national economy and soon enough our society, while we /wonder why and how. Aliens/Foreigners who come to our poor homeland primarily do so for their own self-interest; not help us native Filipinos or our homeland. That is the nature of things in the world.
We should not fully open the homeland to foreigners. We can not afford to copy what strong countries, of nationally united peoples do. No to multiculturalism ---a popular social concept in advanced, rich, fundamentally united peoples like the USA. If we engage in multiculturalism, let us firstly engage and take care of our own ethnic minorites whom we currently ignore, look down upon and even cruelly persecute and destroy.

Suggested reading: "World on Fire," Amy Chua (Double Day, 2003)
..... In the Philippines, the Chinese account for 1% of the population and well over half the wealth. The same is true in varying degrees in Indonesia, Burma, Thailand, Laos, Malaysia and Vietnam.
As Chua argues, rich and powerful minorities attract resentment everywhere: but when those minorities are ethnically different - and highly visible - then that resentment can carry a dangerous charge.
"In the Philippines, millions of Filipinos work for Chinese: almost no Chinese work for Filipinos. The Chinese dominate industry and commerce at every level ... all of the Philippines' billionaires are of Chinese descent. By contrast, all menial jobs ... are filled by Filipinos."
There is very little social intermixing and virtually no intermarriage. And the disparities, Chua argues, have grown more acute with globalisation and western-inspired market reforms.....THE GUARDIAN (UK)

Amy Chua, a Chinese-Filipina, mentioned in the book that her aunt, apparently mistreating/disparaging her native Filipino helpers, was murdered by one.


My previous blogposts re OFWs (to read, click URL below):

http://www.thefilipinomind.com/2006/01/chinese-in-philippines-power-and.html

http://www.thefilipinomind.com/2006/01/filipino-ofw-global-woman-nannies.html


http://www.thefilipinomind.com/2007/04/treatment-of-filipino-overseascontract.html


http://www.thefilipinomind.com/2005/08/workers-remittances-not-long-term-boon.html




******
Recent news:
http://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2015/oct/24/the-vanished-filipino-domestic-workers-working-abroad


- Bert M Drona, 3/16/2016


"The selfish spirit of commerce knows no country, and feels no passion or principle but that of gain" - Thomas Jefferson, 1809

"Capitalism and altruism are incompatible; they are philosophical opposites; they cannot coexist in the same man or in the same society" - Ayn Rand, 1961 



No comments :