False sense of nationalism

The Philippine consulate in Hong Kong may have acted too quickly in placing Hong Kong pop singer Jacky Cheung on its blacklist of people banned from hiring Filipino maids. Just because Cheung hired and fired a total of 21 Filipino maids over three years simply does not prove anything.

My suspicion is that the Philippine consulate was just overly eager to be nationalistic where nothing of the sort was required. Nationalism is not necessarily proven by being on the side of your nationals. In fact a better concept of nationalism would have been promoted by the consulate had it acted more prudently and judiciously on the issue.

The consulate had no evidence that Cheung mistreated or abused any of the 21 Filipino maids he has hired and fired over the last three years. All it had was the numerical information that the Hong Kong singer and his wife did hire and fire 21 Filipino maids over three years. So?

On the contrary, if the Philippine consulate finds that an employer, even if he has maintained only one Filipino maid over 20 years, has been all the while abusing that maid, then it is mandated both by law and its vaunted sense of nationalism to blacklist that employer, even file charges against him.

But the Philippine consulate should not have gone overboard over a matter that it had scant real knowledge about. Not only will it place the entire country in a bad light, it will jeopardize the chances of other Filipinos who find the job of being maids the only chance for them to earn a better livelihood for themselves and their families.

Of course, the Philippine consulate may have earnestly tried to act only in the best interest of Filipinos. It would be unfair and dishonest to take away that motivation away from it. But motivation alone does not suffice in dealing with issues that have wide-ranging national and international repercussions.

In the absence of any evidence of wrongdoing other than the fact that Filipinos were involved and inconvenienced, the move of the Philippine consulate in Hong Kong was not even a calculated risk. It was a plain and simple ill-advised wrong move.

Had it chosen to do its homework, it would have found out, as people are now finding out through the media, that not only were the 21 hired and fired Filipino maids not been abused or mistreated in any way by the Hong Kong singer but, on the contrary, were found to be lazy and not up to par with their given responsibilities.

One report said some of the maids were not fired at all but resigned of their own accord after realizing the cleaning job they had to do at the palatial home of Cheung was too much. Now, it is not the fault of the employer if he is rich enough to have a palace for a home.

Of course, it is not the fault of the maid either. But the maid should have first tried to do some homework of her own before applying. A palatial home is quite apparent by mere perusal alone. If one is not up to such a daunting task, certainly there are other homes of more manageable sizes to handle properly.

Issues such as this have always been mishandled by Filipinos who want to imbue themselves with a false sense of nationalism. We have seen it provoke an international situation with Singapore in the Flor Contemplacion case, where the Filipino maid was put to death for killing the child she was looking after.

To be sure, as fellow Filipinos, we ought to be saddened by the fate of Contemplacion. But she was found guilty according to the laws of Singapore. She was not summarily executed. She was given her day in court. We may not have liked the decision but that was a sovereign decision over which we can do nothing but accept.

But what did we do. We went on a protest mode, burned Singaporean flags, all the while egged on by a television network that was only after its own ratings. Yet, for all our bitching, Contemplacion was still dead, her death did not bring back to life her Singaporean ward, and our sense of nationalism was the laughing stock of the world.

The lesson we should all learn here is that, while we ache as compatriots of Filipinos who get into trouble, it is not our common bloodline that can get them off the hook but the word of the law and the fairness of justice. To feel otherwise is to demean the sacrifice and discipline of other Filipinos who chose to stick to what is right and good.