When haven't Filipinos worked abroad? Working abroad is the Filipino dream. And this comes as no surprise because of the cultural history of the Philippines.
Pre-colonial Filipinos were seafarers
That's right. The residents and natives of the Philippine Islands were seafaring people long before the rocks on the Pacific they lived on were ever called “Filipinas”.
The pre-colonial Filipinos (a word I use to refer to the native residents of the islands) organized themselves as chiefdoms made up of people related by blood and by marriage. Because they live on islands, they realized that to get things they needed, things they themselves could not create or manufacture, they must load up trade goods on boats and sail or paddle to nearby or far-flung islands to barter, to trade, to learn, and to go on adventures. Long before the Spanish came and “discovered” the Philippines in 1521, the Filipinos have already been trading partners with Arabs, Indians and the Chinese.
Dr. Resil Mojares reflects in Isabelo's Archive that the inhabitants of the Philippines were a maritime people and long-distance travelers prior to the coming of the Spaniards. Filipinos loved to travel (p.144)
Even Filipino tribal groups who had no sufficient technological know-how to create ocean-worthy boats and canoes called balangays navigated the interisland seas and rivers on boats to trade with neighboring chiefdoms. In fact, anthropologists have theorized that Filipinos have no monuments like Ankor Wat because they were too busy island-hopping and ocean-cruising.
Of course, there are contrasting opinions to the assertion that the pre-colonial Filipinos were a maritime people or that they crossed the oceans to other lands. Nick Joaquin in his book Culture as History asserts that pre-colonial Filipinos were not true seafarers, or that the extent of our seafaring was to the neighboring islands within our own archipelago only. He points to culture as evidence of history. Precolonial Filipinos did not have sea myths or sea gods unlike the Greeks (Poseidon and The Odyssey) (pp. 34–35). At best, asserts Joaquin, precolonial Filipinos traded with the Chinese, Japanese, Arabs and Indians intermittently. Filipino traders waited for those traders who passed through the Philippines. Later, those traders came to stay or settle when the Spanish came. This is evidenced by the presence of Chinese porcelain on the islands but the absence of a Filipino porcelain culture (p.37). There was no evidence of Buddhism, Shintoism or Hindu religions or cooking in precolonial Filipino culture (p.33). Indeed, Islam had been on the archipelago 200 years before the coming of Spain and Islam had not spread farther than a small portion of Mindanao (p.29). Joaquin asserts that it was only after the Spaniards established Manila as a port of call in the Galleon trade did the Asian neighbors of the Philippines notice us as important enough to penetrate (pp. 40–41).
However, pre-colonial Filipino-made long boats have been excavated, evidence of seafaring or of a fishing culture. And even if Filipino seafaring were limited to islands within our own archipelago, still, this is evidence that precolonial Filipinos traveled to different parts of the archipelago to raid or to trade, in peace or in war. It doesn't really diminish the assertion that precolonial Filipinos loved to travel by sea even if it were only to hop from island to island within our own archipelago. And because the country comprised of autonomous chiefdoms, hopping from one island to another may have been the pre-colonial equivalent of passing through borders of a different country altogether. The seas between islands were not quiet ponds that one can float on using a canoe or skiff. These were shark-infested and rough requiring some knowledge of seafaring.
Filipinos travelled on the Galleon Trade
When the Spaniards came and established the Galleon trade (Acapulco-Manila Trade), Filipinos became seafarers on the Galleon trade (as cabin boys, servants, or interpreters). Filipinos reached Mexico, settled there, and to this day, there are Filipinos in Mexico. There were even Filipinos in the bayous of Louisiana.
Filipinos, when they traveled during the Spanish colonial era, traveled as merchants, sailors, migrant workers or deportees. The Filipino sailors were called Manilamen (Mojares, p.139). Filipinos who voiced criticism of the colonial administration in the islands were punished with exile and thus they traveled (Mojares, 153).
Filipino ilustrados went to Europe to study
During the 300 years of Spanish colonization, scions of the rising Filipino middle class (ilustrados or enlightened ones) journeyed to Europe to study and work there. Jose Rizal, the novelist, did research in the British museum and studied ophthalmology in Heidelberg, Germany.
According to Dr. Resil Mojares in his book Isabelo's Archive, Antonio Luna travelled from the Philippines to Spain and wrote essays chronicling his impressions of Spain (p.143). Faustino Villafranca visited Sicily, Naples, Rome, Paris, London and Spain and even wrote about his travels (p. 145).
But the Filipino world traveler is not a vagabond seeking adventures only. The Filipino world traveler embarks on journeys far from his land to seek a fortune in money or knowledge that he or she can bring back home (Mojares, 149). Rizal, for instance, brought back his knowledge of ophthalmology among other disciplines. His writing of Noli Me Tangere and El Filibusterismo though published in Europe, were smuggled into the Philippines. Although Rizal's novels were not the first novels written and published by a Filipino, the novel was a literary form “borrowed" by Rizal and effectively used by him to support the reform movement in the Philippines. Rizal found and obtained support for the formation of his ideas and eventually, the publication of his book from a Filipino community in Paris made up of artists, writers and merchants.
Filipino migrant workers during US colonization
During the American colonial period, Filipino agricultural workers traveled en masse to the United States to work in the fruit farms of Hawaii, California, Oregon and Washington. Some Filipinos worked in the fish canneries of Alaska. This movement of Filipinos migrant workers was detailed by Carlos Bulosan in his semi-autobiographical novel America is in the Heart. By the 1930s, when Bulosan arrived in California, there was a Filipino community of migrant farm workers there. Some of them sent the money they earned to their families in the Philippines. Others studied while working and came back home to their families with skills and a bigger capacity to earn money back home.
My husband recounts the story of a musikero who gave him guitar lessons when he was a boy of 10. The musikero went by the name Anak sa Baka. Anak sa Baka stowed away on a ship and went to Hawaii where he picked pineapples. He became a musician and he even made his own guitar with a stainless steel body. He went from work camp to work camp in Hawaii and California as an entertainer. When he had saved enough, he bought passage to go back home to the Philippines.
Intermarriage as impetus to travel
Even during colonial times, when different races and ethnicities made contact, intermmariage resulted. Children born of interracial marriages are called “mestizos”. There are Filipino-Chinese mestizos (called Chinoys), Filipino-American mestizos (Fil-Ams) and Filipino-Spanish mestizos.
During the American Commonwealth period, the United States established Clark Airfield and Subic Naval Base in the Philippines. These were the biggest US military installations in Asia. The servicemen who worked in those bases frequented bars, restaurants and communities outside the bases. Some of them married Filipina women and when the servicemen were transferred, their Filipina wives and Filipino children migrated with the servicemen. Beginning World War 2, the United States Army and Navy began accepting Filipinos. In exchange for their military service, Filipinos were able to migrate to the US.
The Philippine government has aggressively marketed the Philippines as a tourist and retirement destination. Tourists visit our islands by the millions. Some tourists come and stay. They marry Filipinas and settle here in the Philippines or else, go back to their native countries and bring their wives and children with them. These Filipinas migrate, find work and settle in countries far away from home.
Aggressive US colonization enabled ease of working abroad
During the American colonization period, the Americans established a public education system where English was taught. This produced a workforce that spoke, read, and wrote English. Since I was a very young girl, I have heard of and I have met Filipinos who had studied in the US as pensionados or scholars of the US government. I have heard of Fulbright and Rockefeller scholars whose studies in US universities were funded by private foundations. Part of the contract under those scholarships was for the Filipino scholars to teach in the US and then go back to teach in the Philippines. I myself was sent to study for a year as a high school exchange student in Iowa. While I could not be employed, I still babysat and earned some money to buy presents to bring back to my family when I came home.
The American missionaries came to the Philippines to convert the natives to Protestantism. They established schools and training colleges on the islands as well. I have met religious workers who had been sent to study and to work in the US before being sent back by their denominations to teach in the Philippines and to manage their denominations' many ministries. I also know of Filipino pastors who were recruited by churches in the US and Canada to be pastors in their congregations there. The churches in the US and Canada comprised migrant Filipinos for members, as well.
Because of the aggressive social and cultural colonization policies of the Americans, by the 1950s, a Filipino population literate in English consumed American books and magazines as much as burgers and french fries, and they sang and danced to American Top 40 hits and to rock and roll.
I remember having seen one episode of the American TV drama series China Beach where the nurse (Colleen McMurphy) was organizing a social event. She tried to find some musical entertainment and ended up with a Filipino band singing Puff the Magic Dragon. Of course, she didn't like the way the band pronounced the words to the song and did not hire the band. My point is, even if it was a work of fiction, such an event could have occured. It is plausible.
By the time of the Vietnam War (1965–1975), US soldiers assigned to fight in Vietnam came by way of Subic and Clark. There were Filipino entertainers singing rock and roll and Top 40 hits to entertain US troops in Clark and Subic. So, it is not far-fetched that when bars and other places of entertainment blossomed around military bases or camps in Vietnam, the services of Filipino bands would have been needed. And Filipino singers who knew the latest rock and roll hits would have been recruited and would have thrived.
Labor export as economic policy during Martial Law
During Martial Law, Filipinos left the country in droves because of the harsh policies set in place by Ferdinand Marcos. Those who were in fear of political persecution because they opposed Martial Law left the country. Political prisoners, once released, went into exile. One example is Jose Ma. Sison, the founder of the Communist Party of the Philippines. He went into exile in the Hague in the Netherlands. Another example is Benigno Aquino, Jr. who was able to leave the Philippines to undergo a heart bypass in Boston, and eventually, to lecture and study in Harvard.
But aside from Filipinos who fled the country as refugees of Martial Law, unskilled, semi-skilled and skilled workers left the Philippines to work in the Middle East in the 1970s. This was because Ferdinand Marcos stifled entrepreneurship by limiting business to his cronies. Also, the Marcos government borrowed heavily from the IMF and the World Bank to prop up the failing Philippine economy. The dollar remittances from Filipino migrant workers in the Middle East became a lifeline for the Philippine domestic economy. Remittances came in dollars and this helped the Philippine government make payments on the loans it has made.
In the 1980s, professionals left the country for better employment prospects. Architects, accountants, engineers, chemists, teachers, doctors, physical therapists, chefs and nurses left the Philippines to work abroad. Some teachers left the country to work as nannies or domestic helpers in Western countries because the pay was much better abroad than the pay they could ever hope to receive working as teachers in the Philippines.
Filipino women, trained as teachers began to work as nannies for the children of oil magnates in the Middle East. It is common knowledge that Prince William (the son of Princess Diana) had a Filipino nanny. When he got married, he invited his Filipino nanny to attend his wedding.
Difficult working conditions abroad
It is not unusual to hear of Filipinos being victims of rape, sexual assault, maltreatment, and slavery/trafficking while working abroad. Filipinos are victims of racist policies that result in underpayment and their inability to negotiate for better pay and benefits.
Underpaid
I have met Filipinos who were hired as domestic workers of diplomats and when the diplomats left for other postings to other countries, the Filipino workers traveled with the diplomats. One such Filipina domestic worker was Juliet Buenaobra who sued the Iraqi diplomat who had hired her and brought her to Australia. The Australian Fair Work Commission ordered the Consulate to pay the Filipina domestic worker the amount of AU $20,000 for unfairly dismissing her and for paying her less than the legislated minimum wage (Anna Patty, Sydney Morning Herald, August 9, 2018).
No regular or permanent jobs
When I was a teenager, we lived next door to a woman who trained cultural dancers who travel on tourist visas to Japan. The dancers were very young, some as young as 18. They traveled to Japan, stayed in dormitories, stayed for five months to work as entertainers, put on shows every night, and at the end of five months, they came back home with a wad of cash. The women came home, rested for a month, repeated the training and worked again for five months. According to our neighbor, the girls did the same thing over and over again until they found better employment or married a Japanese man who will support them, or else they got too old and sickly to work. Some girls went abroad to dance because it was better than doing sex work in the Philippines. Some girls (often referred to as “japayuki”) ended up as prostitutes in Japan just the same.
No deterrence, no let up
And yet, news of the sexual and physical abuse that Filipino migrant workers experience have not deterred migration to work abroad. About 600 OFWs return home dead every year. Some die of suicide, others die of neglect or abuse, still others are victims of crime.
Negative outcomes on family life do not deter migration, either. In 2014, 1 in 10 Filipinos are overseas workers. Around 6000 Filipinos leave daily to work abroad. The money remitted by Filipino workers helps sustain their family life in the country. Migration for work enables Filipinos to care for and support their families in the Philippines.
Overseas work is reproductive work
Every Christmas, Balikbayan boxes arrive. Balikbayan boxes are care packages containing presents sent by OFWs to their families and extended families. The boxes enter the Philippines tax-free. Those boxes express Filipino workers’ care for their loved ones still in the country.
I have known one Filipino family where the father had been working as a jeweler in the Middle East. He succeeded in sending all his children to college. Then, he began sending for his children one by one to live and work in the same city where he works. They pool their resources and live in one home. The mother has already left for The Middle East and she keeps house and cares for her grandchildren in the very same way she would have kept house and cared for her family in the Philippines. Only 2 family members have yet to migrate abroad to work.
To Filipino female overseas workers, working abroad is simply an extension of their work as carers of their families. Some workers view it as long-distance caring for their families.
Working abroad to improve quality of life
Overseas Filipino workers' dollar remittances are an item that bulks up the Philippine gross domestic product. The Philippines weathered the Asian economic crisis, thanks, in large part, to the consistency with which Filipino migrant workers sent dollar remittances home.
The government has made it a policy for a fixed percentage of an OFW's pay to be remitted to their families in the Philippines but this is not even necessary because Filipino migrant workers see their dollar remittances as part of their care and support for their family.
It is not unusual to see a modern house complete with a satellite dish, internet connection, and air conditioning in the middle of a rice field in rural areas in the Philippines. The garage may have both a car and an SUV. Indeed, working abroad is one sure way for Filipinos to improve their socioeconomic status and ensure the education of their children so that they can be socially mobile. The families of OFWs are now the new middle class in the Philippines.
Brain drain
It is not surprising that the Philippines has begun to experience brain drain. There is a shortage of qualified workers in the Philippines to sustain economic growth, and still, migration continues to be an unstanchable hemorrhage. In an effort to stem the storm surge of labor migration, the Philippines has encouraged the growth of the business process outsourcing industry in the country.
Working at a BPO firm is often seen as an alternative to leaving to work abroad. BPO salaries are competitive and working for a BPO often allows workers to work from home so that they can care for their families and earn money at the same time.
However, work in the BPO industry is only for the very young. It is difficult because of the graveyard shift working hours. BPO work is not often regular or stable, work depends on the whims of the foreign corporate clients that hire BPO companies to provide customer service work. BPO workers often work for 6 months for a firm and leave to re-apply at another BPO firm.
While BPO work is lucrative. It is possible for a BPO worker who receives good pay plus bonuses and incentives to buy a condominium unit or a house and lot, a car, and even travel abroad for vacations. However, the health risk associated with BPO work is also high.
It often happens that fresh university graduates apply for work abroad and while they are waiting for the processing of their work papers, they work in the BPO industry. The BPO work has become a stepping stone to gain experience for working abroad.
Future trends
The possibility of Filipinos not working abroad in the future is low. Working abroad brings social prestige. It also brings opportunities to travel for leisure. It brings opportunities to study abroad and gain other skills. Some OFWs who are financially astute have achieved financial independence for themselves and their families because of working abroad. When they stop working abroad, they become entrepreneurs in the Philippines. This, I suppose, is the Philippine dream.
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