It was with dismay that I read an article that Bongbong Marcos, like his father, plans on exporting Filipino workers (Jan. 25, Rappler).
His political strategy, his vision of how he is going to help our people be successful.
Have we not learned how this has contributed to the erosion of our family structure, how children grow up without their parents, most often their mothers?
Have we not learned from the hardships these OFWs go through? With five or six women renting a one-bedroom apartment they can go home to on their days off; one bed that sleeps a rotation of exhausted bodies. One set of beddings, many bodies. That is, if they do get their day off, as employers of yayas are notorious for yanking this away on short notice because something has come up.
And this is just a small example of the many hardships that our OFWs go through all over the world.
Have we not learned that we have created a society of lazy people just waiting for that next balikbayan box to show up at the door, or that notice of another remittance coming through? Why work? The line of least resistance works quite nicely, thank you very much.
Why one bed, one set of beddings? So our OFWs can scrimp every last penny or whatever currency they’re paid in, to fill that balikbayan box, or to send as large a remittance as they can, to their families who have learned not to miss their presence, but would miss the dole with great displeasure when it does not arrive on time.
Philippine version of pensionados – in their 20s or 30s.
So the plan is we are continuing to do this, plus more, instead of creating job opportunities so that phenomenal numbers of our people do not have to leave their families, their homes, their loved ones, their country.
The question then becomes: As a country, why are we not able to create sufficient numbers of jobs? Why do we export people, and not goods?
We have the resources, we have skilled workers, English is prevalent, those who leave work hard, those who leave do not complain when given more work to do. “Not in my job description” is not in our vocabulary. In other words, we have calibre workers.
Methinks our splendid and overt display of graft and corruption at all levels of government discourages investors from abroad who were considering the Philippines as a sound and solid place to invest in.
Someone argued it is because our labor rates are higher than other Third World countries. Really? Not from the stories told to me by our people.
Having made the decision many years ago to invest in Dumaguete to create jobs for our people, my husband and I were horrified to discover that our business plan had to include a certain line item, of not an insignificant amount, to ensure that our purchased equipment cleared through Customs in not just the port of entry, but in other ports as well.
Why “other ports as well”? Had this line item been labelled as “customs tax”, we would not have even given it great thought as we live in a country where we pay significant taxes, but where we benefit by having such essentials like healthcare covered by our taxes.
Stories such as ours, told repeatedly, have a way of getting to the ears of potential investors. We share stories. I have heard of investors partially investing in the Philippines, then packing up because they did not have the right contacts to grease the way, or were unwilling to do so, to play the line-my-pocket game.
So if graft and corruption were not so prevalent at all levels of government in the Philippines, in virtually all departments, wouldn’t we have more job opportunities created because we can attract investors?
Wouldn’t this mean we do not have to have a government program of exporting our people to work in other countries?
Wouldn’t this mean that parents, especially mothers, get to stay in the Philippines to personally raise their children?
Wouldn’t this mean we have children who grow up being taught the right values – integrity and honesty, kindness and compassion, respect for others and oneself, work ethics, practice of inclusion, standing up for the vulnerable, putting in place the right environment for their future, and the future of their children?
For without these values taught and internalized until they become rote, our children become adults who seek the life of crime, of graft and corruption, as they see this as their stairway to heaven, their version of heaven.
We need not look too far to see how this is being done, to see how much richer and richer, and more powerful our elected politician has become.
People dream of the rags-to-riches tale of a number of our powerful political dynasties having arrived there on the rug of taxpayers’ money. They have so many examples to follow. A no-brainer.
Full circle.
Come May 9, 2022, it’s make-or-break time. Make the circle bigger and bigger, or break it once and for all? Or at least, start breaking it. That would be a start.
It’s in our hands what world we will live in going forward.
Diana Bugeya
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