No rush to come home

No one is coming home… so far. That, in a nutshell, was what a labor official and the head of the largest overseas Filipino workers’ organization told us last Friday, when asked about the response of OFWs in Kuwait to calls for them to return to their own country.

It’s been only a few days since President Duterte issued the call, so I expect that in the coming weeks, we will see some of the OFWs seeking repatriation, especially those suffering from abuse. But they’re likely to constitute only a tiny fraction.

The majority will come home only if the circumstances that drove them to seek meaningful employment overseas are no longer there. And our country is still a long way from drastically cutting its labor export.

Poverty is the main driver of labor migration, according to the chairman of Migrante-Philippines, the largest organization of overseas Filipino workers. Arman Hernando, whose parents and several other relatives are OFWs, says that at this point, most of the country’s huge army of migrant workers still have little to come home to in terms of employment.

Hernando estimates that up to 90 percent of jobs in the Philippines are contractual. Jobs overseas, apart from paying more, are covered by contracts usually for two years. While such contracts make it difficult to leave abusive employers, for many others it means assured employment for a definite period.

The contracts are often renewable, and it’s not uncommon for OFWs to stay in their jobs for many years. I’ve met OFWs in many countries who told me they have been working outside the Philippines for more than a decade, going home only for their annual leaves, special occasions or emergencies and during breaks between contracts.

Hernando was one of the guests in the pilot taping last Friday of our talk show “The Chiefs” on TV 5, which I am co-hosting with BusinessWorld’s Roby Alampay and TV 5’s Ed Lingao. The Migrante chairman told us that OFWs in Kuwait were worried about their job security amid the diplomatic row between the two countries over the videotaped rescue of distressed maids by Philippine embassy staff.

Even OFWs in other countries in the Middle East and North Africa, which host millions of Filipino workers, are worried about possible fallout, Hernando said, with Philippine diplomatic missions now being watched for similar activities that might embarrass the host countries.

* * *

With over 10 million Filipinos working abroad, it’s inevitable that a number of them will suffer from various types of abuse and exploitation. OFW deployment began in 1974, with the petrodollar-fueled massive development of the Middle East. The jobs were mainly for men. As soon as we began deploying women workers overseas during the Marcos regime, we’ve heard horror stories about maids being abused and Pinays becoming victims of human trafficking.

Even after the collapse of the Marcos dictatorship, the horror stories continued in several countries. Pinay maids were burned with clothes irons and banned together with dogs from Hong Kong elevators. My colleagues who covered news events in the Netherlands returned with stories of Pinays on display in the “window brothels” of Amsterdam.

Philippine diplomatic missions overseas are tasked to assist Filipinos who are duped into the flesh trade or drug trafficking rings aside from those who end up with employers who treat workers worse than dogs. I’m sure not all the rescue missions are coordinated with law enforcers in the host countries, and I’m sure the host countries are aware that such rescues happen. Host countries have enough problems on their hands so they can let such things pass – as long as the rescue operations remain hush-hush.

We all know that the opposite happened in those rescues in Kuwait. Now, thanks to the publicity seekers in the Department of Foreign Affairs, even Philippine missions in other countries may be hampered from conducting swift responses to OFWs’ urgent cries for help.

Abused OFWs, especially the most vulnerable – the household service workers or maids – can return to the Philippines, as urged by President Duterte himself.

Another guest in our TV show, Joji Aragon, told us that as of last December, the Department of Labor and Employment had over 206,000 job orders for domestic helpers in Hong Kong (154,511), Singapore (30,699), Cyprus (11,325), Brunei (6,519) and Macau (3,308). DOLE also had job orders for 104,203 professionals in several countries, according to Aragon, who is labor assistant secretary for legal, legislative and international affairs.

“We’re fully prepared for repatriation,” Aragon told us. “We’re ready for anything.”

Hernando, however, stressed that those 163,000 Pinay maids in Kuwait – about 60 percent of the 262,000 OFWs in the Gulf state – would have to compete for the available jobs with other applicants. And there are still thousands of such applicants in the Philippines.

OFWs want to be reunited with their families and prefer to come home for good, Hernando added, rather than to compete again for jobs in alternative markets. But the employment situation in the Philippines, while improved by job demand in business process outsourcing and the promise of employment in the Build Build Build infrastructure program, still cannot compete with the attractiveness of job markets overseas. Including in Kuwait.

* * *

Perhaps if Build Build Build is carried out according to plan, it will attract our skilled OFWs to come home. But Filipinos seek jobs overseas out of necessity. And eliminating the circumstances that created the necessity will require reforms, a number of which have been strongly resisted by those in power.

The reforms include those that will create an effective, strong regulatory environment and measures that will level the playing field and make doing business easier. These reforms have been talked to death for years and easily crushed by the beneficiaries of the status quo.

Ironically, OFW remittances have propped up the economy even in the worst global downturns. That economic strength, in turn, has been cited as an excuse for keeping the status quo and resisting those reforms.

Without the reforms, there won’t be enough jobs. Filipinos will continue seeking work overseas, and they won’t be in any hurry to return home.

* * *

THE BOOT: As of yesterday, the hiss from the Supreme Court snake pit was that the vote on May 11 on the quo warranto petition would be nine in favor of removing Maria Lourdes Sereno as chief justice and three against. Two are still undecided.