Pinoy migration trail blues

Every Filipino has a friend or relative who has migrated to a foreign land or altogether packed up in search of the proverbial greener pastures as overseas contract workers. This may not be a uniquely Philippine phenomenon, but the consistent Pinoy hejira through the years speaks not only of the dire economic situation at home but also the Filipino abilidad and quest for adventure. It may well be that one follows the other.

The Inter Press Service wire agency along with the Ford Foundation has put together a book of essays written by IPS corespondents around the world that documents the countless stories of Filipinos who leave home and hearth for the chance to just keep home and hearth afloat.

Formerly based in Manila, IPS has since moved its Asia Pacific bureau offices to Thailand, though the bosswomen still have a familiar ring to their names: Johanna Son, formerly of the defunct Manila Chronicle, and Rosario Liquicia, who used to work for Reuters’ Manila bureau.

Interesting to find Son and Liquicia compile a book on migration now that they too are on the same boat, being OCWs in their own way. When IPS released its dispatches from Manila, the news folders often came with illustrations by artist Jose Tence Ruiz, who himself had done time in Singapore working in the Straits Times as resident alien cartoonist.

The stories and reports compiled in Risks & Rewards: Stories from the Philippine Migration Trail may on the surface seem all too familiar: the sacrifice made by the breadwinner to forsake the company of loved ones by slaving away abroad to provide the children a "better future" (or beta pyucha as the rock group Yano would have it).

College degree holder leaves for work as caregiver, nurse or domestic helper for a few more dollars’ worth of compensation compared to the slave wages that could be had at home if work can be found in the first place, and as soon as she leaves househusband takes up with another woman or to the bottle, whichever tragedy is convenient.

That is only the stereotypical sob story, but there is more to the overseas Pinoy workers’ experience than meets the eye or makes the newspapers, save of course if the dispatch is from IPS.

In Hong Kong, for example, a good number of contractual domestics literally moonlight by walking the streets of the former Crown Colony’s entertainment district at night.

In Korea, Filipinas married to Korean farmers try to cope with boredom, isolation and the language barrier in the countryside by banding together in a kind of informal support group.

In Italy, second generation Fil-Italians adjust to their adopted life in old Europe again by seeking comfort in the familiarity of fellows from the homeland.

In Brazil, Filipino sailors rave over the local prostitutes and vice versa in a semi-mutual admiration society that speak volumes of good old Pinoy machismo and/or gallantry, or is it that the Brazilian chulas are in a class by themselves? A Pinoy seafarer observed that women are the only reason why Filipinos opt to sail the seven seas.

And as in any family forced apart by economic circumstances, there are the signature stories of heroic love and perseverance. Couples living apart try to keep the faith by maintaining open communication lines, like regularly sending each other text messages and taped songs and similarly heartfelt dedications that may sound corny to the outsider, but always a matter of life and death for the concerned parties.

Always there is the question of trust for these temporarily separated couples, and we don’t mean the condom brand. There are the usual statistics on the prevalence and awareness for prevention of sexually transmitted diseases particularly for the male seafarers, living up as they do to the "girl in every port" syndrome.

There is also an essay on lesbian love as a defense mechanism for Filipina workers abroad, both as a protection against pregnancy (which would cost them their jobs) and a means of bonding and fundamental companionship.

Veteran journalists writing on gender sensitive issues, like Ceres Doyo, Cookie Micaller, Daisy Mandap, Kathy Moran and Maritess Sison, turn up stories invariably taking the woman’s viewpoint, since a good majority of OFWs are women. (Such that the F could stand for Filipina).

Risks & Rewards makes for quite a comprehensive document of the Filipino workers’ experience in a foreign land, and a testament as well to the storied Pinoy resilience, set aside the rhetoric about migrant workers being silent heroes by their propping up the gross national product. That against tremendous odds the Filipino will strive to keep body and soul together if it means working at the ends of the earth; there’s not a country on this planet without a Filipino earning a living in some obscure corner. It really is one step away from world domination, as Jessica Zafra so aptly put it.