What advantages do Filipinos have over other Asean workers?
Dateline: Yogyakarta, Island of Java, Indonesia. 09 September 2015. In my lecture here in the Indonesia HR Summit 2015, I was trying to tell the Indonesian company executives from Chevron and other delegates representing many global conglomerates why the Filipino human capital are being preferred as foreign workers all over the world. And I got a very warm and animated reaction judging from the many HR executives asking for my signatures and my business card. There were some very distinguished-looking top business executives who were booking me for speaking engagements and for possible tie-ups in their ASEAN-wide talent acquisition business.
My message was very clear. There are more than twelve million Filipino talents who are currently working in 200 countries all over the global economic community. They are remitting no less than twenty-five billion US dollars to our economy. Our talents are being sought-out by employers in Europe, the Americas, the Middle East, and all over ASIA largely because of three competitive edges: ABC, which means A for Availability; B for Behavior, and C for Competencies. Our human capital is available anytime. Their behavior is suited for work abroad. And their competencies are vast and multi-dimensional.
Availability means that any foreign recruiter with a partner who has a duly licensed Philippine-based recruitment firm can go to any island and province in the Philippines and they can find more than enough supply of human talents that are ready and raring to go anywhere in the world to work. It is not like any other ASEAN member nation that has a large population but whose people are not available for foreign work, either for lack of the needed skills or for lack of will to go abroad. The Filipinos are, by nature, adventurous and bold, daring and are in real need for work. They can leave anytime to any destination.
Behavior means the track record of OFWs' as hardworking, reliable, trustworthy, and highly committed workers who will go all the way to prove their worth. They are willing and prepared physically, emotionally and psychologically to work even in remote worksites as mining engineers in the oil fields in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain, Dubai, and Abu Dhabi, or work long hours as nurses and hospital attendants in midnight shifts in New York, Canada, Singapore, and in the Scandinavian countries. Filipino drivers, against the better judgment of embassy officials, would cross the borders to Iraq and Iran from Kuwait just to earn money for their families.
Competence, of course, means that our migrant workers are multi-skilled and are used to multi-tasking. The restaurant waiters in Kuala Lumpur can double up as IT support for their employers' other companies in Penang, Johore, and Malacca. The domestic helpers assigned in Singapore can be relied upon by their employers to cross the border to Johore Bahru and transact business for their employers' medium-scale business enterprises. The DH can operate the computers and can prepare powerpoint and other more complicated IT applications. They can be trusted to do banking transactions and would soon rise to corporate and business jobs instead of staying as domestics all their lives.
Because of my presentation, many companies' HR professionals came up to me wanting to get me as their Philippine representative. They want to hire many Filipino for good-paying jobs not only in Indonesia but for Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam, Brunei, Myanmar, Laos PDR, and Cambodia. Filipinos can work there as teachers, nurses, doctors, engineers, accountants, travel consultants, and HR top executives, trainors, consultants, writers, and entertainers. Entertainment means legitimate singing and culture dancing, not sex-related tourism, which is obnoxious to our culture and faith as God-fearing Catholics and Christians. What matters most in my foreign trip here is that I am acting as an ambassador of goodwill to tell them of what is good in our country and in our people. Mabuhay.
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