Gains and pains from migration (part 2)

Not only because our doctors have left the country, our engineers have been gone and our teachers have become domestic helpers, above all, our children lost their parents. Labor migration is weakening the very foundation of our society because it is wrecking marriages and breaking families. Homes have become dysfunctional and families have lost their values. For every father who leaves home to work in Saudi Arabia, there is a wife who is deprived of a husband’s love and presence and there are sons and daughters who lose their father’s love and guidance. Since there are more than 2 million OFWs in the Middle East alone, ergo, there are more than 2 million homes that have lost their pillars of strength. Some psychologists told me, when I was a parent of three boys in Don Bosco, that absentee fathers lead their sons to become effeminate because their behavior models are their moms, instead of their dads. I am not sure of this but what I am sure is that many drug addicts, juvenile convicts and delinquents, young drunkards and gamblers have OFWs as dads and moms. Let us leave that thesis to be tested by facts, however.

But as labor-attaché I can testify that six to seven out of every 10 female OFWs (mostly domestics) both in Malaysia and Kuwait, whom I interviewed and my wife assisted as voluntary counselor, are separated from the fathers of their children. Many of them also commit some acts of adultery as defense mechanisms for their repressed and unresolved anger. Of course, there are many OFWs who stand unblemished, but I can say without any fear of contradiction, that out here, away from family, the temptations are too strong. Consider the implications and consequences of all these to the nation and individuals. And quantify the pains that we have to suffer, us and the future generations.

Rethinking the role of government

For those who are prone to lay the ultimate blame on the doorstep of government alone, we dare ask: Is it government’s appropriate role to control the free flow of people, especially in an era of heightened globalization, where political and immigration legal barriers are being demolished, to give way to unrestricted movements of goods and human skills? The Ambassador to Malaysia, Vic M. Lecaros, with whom I worked as Labor-attaché for 3 years, used to ask a philosophical question: “Should we stop a young Filipina from crossing the seas illegally from Zamboanga, to Sabah in the guise of helping her in the name of government, even if she does not want to be helped? To which, I pose another hypothetical question: should we stop a person from jumping into a ravine if he thinks that deep down there, he would find his salvation?

The more politically correct line, of course, is for government to make sure that the people would not have to jump to any ravine at all. The usual line is for government to create job opportunities here so that our workers don’t have to risk breaking their marriages and families. But, then again, this is much easier said than done, with population exploding exponentially and geometric rates, and our religious preachers forbid us to use the condom or else we go to hell. I hope with broken families, we are not there already. Pastilan gayod.

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