The Philippines is an archipelago of more than 7,100 islands with a total land area of 298,170 sq. m. It is located in the tropical zone of Southeastern Asia between the Philippine Sea and South China Sea. It has an estimated population of 74 million, the majority of whom are Christian Malays (91.5%) which makes it the only Christian country in Asia. The Philippines won independence on June 12, 1898 after three hundred years of Spanish rule, but only to fall under US control.
After Japan's defeat in World War II, the Republic of the Philippines was proclaimed on July 4, 1946, with Manuel Roxas as the First President. The late dictator Ferdinand Marcos was elected president on 9 November, 1965. Marcos declared Martial Law in 1972 which gave the military excessive power and led to numerous human rights violations. Brutality, rampant corruption, and cronyism characterized the Marcos regime. The assassination on August 21, 1983 of Marcos's main political rival, Benigno Aquino on his return from exile in the US precipitated widespread demands for political change. In 1986, a popularly-supported military revolt in Manila led to Marcos's flight from the Philippines and into exile in the US, where he died in September, 1989. Cory Aquino, wife of Benigno Aquino became the country's first democratically elected president, and its first female leader.
During the second half of the 1980s, economic growth in neighboring countries was rapid compared to slow or stagnating growth in the Philippines. Exacerbated by political uncertainty, the Philippine economy plunged into recession in 1985 and became known as the "Sick Man of Asia."
Former General Fidel Ramos was elected president in 1992 and allegedly restored investor confidence. There were strong signs of an economic turnaround in 1993 as GDP grew 1.7% in the second quarter, reversing the 0.2% contraction in the first quarter of the year. Buoyed by the remittances of Filipinos working abroad, the GNP grew 1.8% in the first half of the year, an improvement from the 0.6% logged in the same period of 1992. Because of the upturn in the second quarter's figures despite the power crisis, the government expected more vigorous growth in the remaining half of the year.
Sustained economic growth between 1993-96 averaged 4.7% and was largely based upon an inflow of foreign investments, remittances from Filipino migrants, and proceeds from a massive privatization drive for state-owned enterprises. The government continues its economic reforms to enable the Philippines to reduce the gap in prosperity with the newly industrialized countries of East Asia. The strategy includes reform of the banking sector, improving infrastructure, and overhauling the tax system to bolster government revenues.
Filipino migrants play a very important role in the development of the Philippine economy because they contribute billions of dollars in remittances from abroad every year. But, the price of their contribution is high because Filipino migrants continue to suffer under exploitative conditions and the government is doing little to help.
Labor migration has been a part of Philippine history. It started when an American company hired Asian workers from Japan, Korea, Philippines and China to work on various construction projects such as the Kennon Road to Baguio City.
During American colonial rule (1898-1930) thousands of farmers were hired to work in the pineapple plantations of Hawaii. Many of them came from the impoverished northern region of Ilocos. The number of migrant workers kept on increasing until they comprised 70% of the total workforce in Hawaii. The next destination of Filipino migrant worked in California as apple, orange, and grape pickers. After World War II, the United States also used Filipinos workers to build and repair military installations in Guam, Okinawa, and Wake Islands. The 1950s were also characterized as the brain-drain era because many Filipino professionals, including doctors and nurses, went to the USA in search of higher paying jobs.
There was a change in the pattern of migration among Filipinos during the time of Marcos. Initially, manpower exports were considered a "stop gap measure" to help the economy. However, migration became an official government policy with two objectives. First, remittances from abroad help the government and business accumulate foreign exchange and balance the country's chronic trade deficit. Second, migrants working abroad help reduce the number of unemployed. The Marcos administration took advantage of the various projects arising from "petrodollars" in the Middle East. As a result, many Filipinos went to Saudi Arabia and neighboring countries. In 1974, "Overseas Employment" was included in the Philippine Labor Code. Placement agencies mushroomed everywhere and deployment of seafarers, construction workers, entertainment and domestic workers became more pronounced.
Today, the Philippines is the biggest labor exporting country in Asia and is ranked second in the world next to Mexico. According to government research, there are 3.5 million overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) scattered around the world. Meanwhile, Non-Government Organizations (NGOs) estimate that the number of OFWs at around 7 million, including undocumented workers and mail-order brides. OFWs are found in 168 countries but predominantly in North America, Saudi Arabia, Hong Kong, Taiwan and Japan.
Total remittances for 1996 hit a record high of US$4.2 billion. For 1997, the Central Bank expects a further 25% increase in workers' remittances. The amount is said to be more than enough to make up for the projected slow down in portfolio funds invested in government securities.
Since 1992, remittances have been growing by 35% annually. The actual figure may even be higher, since many Filipino workers send their money through informal channels. Before the 1997 Asian economic crisis, Filipino expatriates in Indonesia were the top earners, receiving an average annual income between US$7,000-15,000. Notable, too are remittances from Filipinos in Western Europe (US$406 million) for the first 8 months of 1996 eclipsing the amount coming from Filipinos in the Middle East (US$29 million).
The increase in remittance despite the decrease in the number of land-based OFWs was a sign that many undocumented Filipinos continue to go abroad. Indeed, there has been a slight decline in the number of OFWs legally deployed in 1995 (660,122) compared to 719,602 OFWs in 1994. In 1996, the number reached 660,122. By 1997, the number reached 636,832. But this figure only covered January to October. This means that 55,010 Filipinos left for work abroad for every month in 1996, 63,683 per month in 1997.
The competition for jobs and wages among workers was greatly felt by OFWs working in the NICs. As the NICs prospered, they were able to find alternative sources of cheap labor from Indochina, Burma, and other poor and war-torn countries in Asia and Africa.
In the Philippines, Congressman Dante Liban pointed out that remittances of OFWs are likely to
fall to a single-digit growth figure as a result of a "constricting labor market" in Hong Kong
after the handover to China and Malaysia's possible deportation of thousands of undocumented
OFWs who might not qualify under a government amnesty program, and the depressed labor
market in the Middle East.
The tightening of immigration policies among the receiving countries contributes to migrant workers' miseries.
European Union (EU) countries have been steadily easing out foreign workers from jobs which give opportunity for longer stay. The EU's immigration policy has been developing along two main lines: one, relating to the "external borders," and two, relating to "internal controls." External borders, the so-called "Fortress Europe," means tight control on the issuance of visas. Internal controls include spot checks on the streets, raids in workplaces, and random house-to-house checks in areas populated by migrants.
Greece has also launched crackdowns on "illegal workers." The government ordered employers to declare the exact number of foreigners in their employ. Failure to comply results in a severe penalty. Further, Greece also enforces two presidential decrees that regulate the issuance of temporary work permits to migrants.
In Malaysia, new laws took effect on 1 February 1997, that require the caning of "illegal workers" and their employers, imposition of a maximum fine of RM50,000 (US$20,000) - previously the maximum fine was US$4,000 - and a jail sentence of up to ten years.
As the number of undocumented OFWs increases, so does the repression they face from the various states where they are employed. While Leonardo Quisumbing, former Secretary of the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE), blames the rise of undocumented workers on illegal recruitment, we see the government management of foreign finance capital into the country, as part of the problem. Quisumbing points to the increase in remittance vis-a-vis the decrease in the number of legal, land-based OFWs as a sign many continue to leave as undocumented OFWs. We point out the unseen hand of government.
The Labor Secretary added that, with the annual outflow of migration at 600,000 Filipinos, the government would find it difficult to achieve its objective of significantly reducing labor migration.
How can it do so when some of its officials, in the highest posts, are allegedly involved in human smuggling? Senator Nikki Coseteng implicated no less than Bureau of Immigration Commissioner Edgar Mendoza in human smuggling. In Mindanao, Bureau of Customs official Mina Dianalan, said that government men working at the Bureau of Immigration or Customs, and the police are involved in a nationwide chain of human smuggling.
How can all this be explained when the government wanted the export of labor to be a fully-deregulated industry by 1999? Even the Overseas Filipinos and Migrant Workers Act of 1995 or Republic Act 8042, places welfare and other forms of protection of deployed migrant workers as a sole activity of the private sector. In part, the government will only give information on the country of destination. As a whole, this is an escape by the government from its role as protector of its citizens. In the past, slaves gained freedom by slaying a lion while Romans watched with glee from afar. During this era, modern-day slaves pay government and recruiters to watch them walk towards tigers across the seas. This is the most recent trend in international labor migration: abdication by governments of their duty to protect the rights and welfare of their migrant workers.
A continuing trend that reveals a more vicious character of international labor migration is the feminization of Filipino labor exports.
Dr. Florian Alburo, in his article entitled The Overseas Labor Market,(1) emphasized the increase in the number of Filipino women workers leaving for overseas employment. Dr. Alburo noted that after 1987, a "new configuration" in the "diaspora" of workers is front-lined by domestics and entertainers. In 1994, for example, domestics (often with college degrees) made up 26% of new hires.
"What is disturbing," Dr. Alburo adds, "is the gender distribution of new-hires of land-based OFWs that] has seen an increased proportion of females." Within a two-year period (1994-1996), women workers surged from 50.7% of total deployed workers to 60%. "Domestic help and entertainers ... comprise 45% of the new hires," wrote Dr. Alburo.(2)
Filipino overseas women also comprised 60% of Filipino fiancees and spouses, according to the Commission of Filipino Overseas report on the 1996 Distribution of Registered Filipino Emigrants. The report revealed that out of 60,926 Filipino emigrants, 36,477 are women. However, feminization of migration means less in terms of figures but more in terms of character, although both deeply affect one another. Still, the character of labor demands figure out the labor supply.
In 1994, the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA) began offering ballet courses to would-be entertainers and caregiver's training program to potential domestic helpers. By 1996, President Ramos began to believe that such talent and skills would protect Filipino women workers. Mr. Ramos then defined entertainers -- talented enough to pirouette on stage, and domestic helpers, talented enough to pirouette with a broom -- as world-class workers.
Above all these, labor migration is indeed characterized by how migrants figure under the whims of their foreign employer and foreign affairs officials. In a 1996 report, Kanlungan Centre Foundation, Inc. (Kanlungan) recorded 150,132 migrant workers who suffered from various forms of abuse from these authorities. Kanlungan also recorded 44 women migrant workers who died under suspicious circumstances from January 1996 to June 1997.(3) Suspiciously, too, only Filipino women were infected by new work-related illnesses. In Hong Kong, five to six migrant women workers were afflicted by brain viral infection in 1996. By 1997, two were reported to have been afflicted by the so-called "bird flu" syndrome. In Taiwan, the Steven Johnson Syndrome afflicted 150 OFWs.
Different activities by various organizations are being done with the purpose of advancing Filipino migrants' rights and welfare. For example, Kanlungan in the Philippines is doing advocacy works for the rights and protection of women migrant workers. This is done through distribution of printed materials, hosting and appearing in radio programs, renting out and creating audiovisual materials and through symposium/fora on migration issues with migrant workers themselves.
Other relevant activities include launching campaigns on a case-by-case basis with close advisement of the media community and participation in committee hearings on migrant related bills in the Senate and Congress. Documentation work is also being undertaken which include monitoring and recording cases of violations of migrants' rights.
Organizations in the Philippines promote migrants' rights though:
The government's dependence on foreign capital for economic development resulted only in the further disintegration of local industries and structures for socio-political and economic security. While this dependence succeeded in generating revenues for the bureaucracy, it failed to generate satisfying jobs for new graduates as well as jobless Filipinos. While foreign capital placed millions of pesos in the pockets of new oligarchs, it displaced Filipino workers from their jobs and the landless from their homes.
The rapid inflow of foreign capital to Asian and East European countries hastened the outflow of labor. Rapid inflow of capital meant short-term demands for labor inputs. While this condition created employment, it was always on short-notice. Hence, while unemployment in the Philippines went down to 7.7% in January 1997, the number of workers laboring 40 hours or more a week increased by 17.7 million.(4)
Thus, foreign investment did not create employment, it only heightened underemployment. There's a big difference in having a two-year contract employment in unknown territories and having a six-month work through labor-only contracting in your own land. The first is a gamble. The second is a losing proposition.
Nearing the end of President Ramos's 6-year term, one would expect a decrease in the number of factors sustaining the export of Filipino workers to other countries. This expectation hinges on the promise of Mr. Ramos that his Medium-Term Philippine Development Plan (MTPDP) would pole-vault the nation into NIC status. This status would have laid out a reversal of fortunes: the country would then need a huge number of workers and entice OFWs to come home.
But the government cannot reduce labor migration. It cannot, because the material conditions internal and external to Philippine society does not permit reduction in the number of migrant workers. A slowdown maybe in the offing. But, as the Asian Development Bank said, "the Philippines remains the largest net exporter of labor in Asia and the second largest in the world after Mexico."(5)
It will not do so because labor export, continues the ADB Report, is "part of [the Philippines] economic development strategies." It will not do so because this economic strategy provides remittances which serve as a buffer to a shaky economy. No wonder President Ramos calls OFWs his "heroes." OFWs have been saving his failing development program from the start.
Nearing the beginning of a new millennium and the end of technological backwardness, one would expect the Philippine government to seek an end to these afflictions -- whether biological, labor-related, or political -- suffered by Filipino migrant workers.
But the Philippine government, hostage to old and new oligarchs and their infighting, will not be made to do so.
Manila Standard columnist, J. Barican, echoes the reasons why, "Instead of crafting a true benefits and protection program, the public and our politicians paid workers in the cheap coin of language, calling them 'heroes' or by indulging in a never-ending stream of gimmickry: from Balikbayan programs (designed principally to part the returning worker from his/her money) to giving them absentee voting rights."
This report was compiled from "To And From in One Stride: Philippine Migrant Situation on the Eve of a New Millennium" written by Estopace, Dennis (Kanlungan Center Foundation, Inc., Philippines), with the following additional sources:
Solidarity Centre for Migrants (Japan), Reintegration Manual.
Kanlungan Center Foundation, Inc. T. N. T. Issue No. 17: 1997.
The Manila Standard, February 3, 1997.
Endnotes:
1. 2. 3. 4. 5.