The Exodus: Pinoy Migrant Workers (OFW/OCW)

[kiretoce]

RP's labor deployment system is world's standard -- IOM
March 13th, 2007

MANILA, Philippines -- Despite problems with illegal recruitment, irregular and distressed workers, and the so-called brain drain, the Philippines' labor deployment system is the world's standard, said Brunson McKinley, director general of the International Organization for Migration (IOM).

McKinley, who is here for the launching of the National Reintegration Center, among other reasons, said: "The Philippines has [a] clear advantage on labor migration over all countries in the countries."

He said the country's system of recruitment, contracts, training, welfare, insurance, and protection of rights are all in place.

"It is not perfect but it is good," he told reporters after the dinner hosted by the labor department in his honor Monday night.

"The Philippines is doing a very good job. It is not by accident that the Philippines is considered the model in labor migration where systems that work are in place. The whole world can learn from the Philippines as globalization of labor is growing all around the world," he added.

McKinley said that as a pioneer in the field, the Philippines should now move up the overseas workforce ladder. He said that in the beginning, the country was deploying workers to more basic jobs.

"We see that in the seafarers. A generation ago, Filipinos were sailors, now they're officers and captains," he said.

The IOM chief said he foresees a big growth in labor migration especially since working abroad is now easier than it used to be.

"The demographic trends show that there are more spaces for foreign workers to work in," he said. "This is the end result of a freer labor market and general prosperity in the world."

The Philippines has some eight million Filipinos working and living outside the Filipinos. And the number continues to increase as more than 3,000 Filipinos leave the country every day.

[kiretoce]

South Korea ups job quota for Filipino workers

South Korea’s labor ministry has increased by 20 percent this year’s job roster quota of the Philippines to 12,000, from 10,000 in 2006.

Administrator Rosalinda Baldoz of the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA) attributed the quota increase to the Filipino laborers’ good performance last year.

The higher quota makes the Philippines the biggest labor exporter among 14 countries covered by Korea’s Employment Permit System (EPS), a government-to-government hiring scheme intended to curb the problem over illegal recruitment.

Baldoz said Thailand and Vietnam got 11,000 quota each, Indonesia and Mongolia got 9,000 each, and Sri Lanka, was given 8,000. Other countries have quota ranging from 1,000 t0 5,000 workers.

The EPS replaced the Alien Industrial Trainee System (AITS) that allowed hiring through private recruiters. Korea had abolished the trainee scheme and stopped issuing trainee visas since Jan 1, 2007.

As a result, Philippine licensed agencies that used to hire trainees for Korea could no longer recruit workers under the trainee scheme.

Under this scheme, Korean employers can only get foreign workers legally through the EPS. The POEA is the only government agency authorized to implement the scheme in the Philippines.

Sound migration policies

Baldoz said the increased quota for the Philippines “underscores the confidence of Korea in the soundness of our labor migration policies and the competence of the government overseas employment agencies to deliver the required services."

The Philippines and South Korea have a memorandum of understanding on the deployment of Filipino workers.

Baldoz said the additional job quota given to the Philippines effectively debunks speculations that the quota will be reduced due to the alleged increase in the number of overstaying Filipinos in Korea.

“The rate of increase of illegal foreign nationals was one of the criteria used in the country allocation so the insinuation was proved wrong with the increase of quota," Baldoz said.

Korea’s labor ministry reported that from January to November 2006, a total of 2,053 foreign workers left their employers illegally. Mongolians topped the list with 687; Thais, 621; Indonesians, 246; Filipinos, 231; Vietnamese, 193; and Sri Lankans, 84.

The other criteria used were the employers’ preference, labor contract cancellation, speed of deployment process, and number of industries looking for prospective workers.

Korean language test

The POEA is currently administering the registration of prospective overseas workers for the May 6 Korean Language Test (KLT) as a requirement for employment under the EPS.

Registration has been going on until April 20 at the Occupational Safety and Health Center on North Avenue corner Agham Road in Quezon City.

A brief commotion marred the first day of the registration on April 2 when hundreds of job applicants forced open the compound’s gate to gain entry into the compound.

The language test will be held on May 6 at the University of the East (UE) and San Sebastian College in Manila. Test venues for Cebu and Davao applicants have not been determined.

The original quota for the Philippines was for 9,000 Filipino males and 1,000 females for this year, mostly as factory workers.

Factory jobs in South Korea pay an average of $700 a month, excluding overtime pay, which is pegged at 150 percent of regular rates.

Baldoz said over the past three years, the EPS has employed 14,000 overseas Filipino workers.

Applicants should pass the Korean Language Test and the medical requirement for inclusion in the ‘Roster of Jobseekers’ to have a chance to be hired by a Korean employer, Baldoz said.

Simultaneous registration for KLT are going on at the POEA regional offices in Cebu (mezzanine floor of LDM building on MJ Cuenco Avenue corner Legaspi Street in Cebu City) and Davao (2nd floor of AMYA II building on Quimpo boulevard corner Tulip Street, Ecoland).

The May 6 KLT is the fifth that Korea has scheduled in the Philippines and eight other labor-exporting countries: Vietnam, Thailand, Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Mongolia, Cambodia, Uzbekistan and Pakistan.

The test covers 25 questions with 100 score for ‘listening’ for 40 minutes and another 25 questions for reading with 100 score for 50 minutes.

In order to pass, the applicant must get at least 40 points in each test domain, and an overall score of at least 120 points for the two tests.

[kiretoce]

Toiling abroad for survival
By Isabel Escoda 12 April 2007

It's no secret that for some time now Filipinos have often been looked upon as the world's servants. Known for being amiable English-speaking people from an impoverished Asian country, Filipino migrant workers have made themselves indispensable in countless households in developed countries around the globe.

It's also no secret that this fact infuriates many members of the Filipino elite who detest being lumped with the menial class.

In the early days, when the role of master and servant was clearly delineated, wealthy Westerners sometimes employed Chinese cooks as well, which gave them some cachet among the upper classes, even in the democratic United States. It was, I believe, a William Faulkner novel which featured a southern tycoon who employed a Filipino whose status was just a step above the black workers on his plantation. Lurking about in the southerners mansion, the man did his master's bidding and performed the menial tasks.

The Filipino manservant then was something of a novelty; the Filipina housemaid today is a commonplace.

Globalisation has seen huge numbers of inhabitants of the Third World, as it's often been called, heading for the First World on such a massive scale that it's become quite unacceptable to speak about servants. This would be because there are also a number of migrants in the nursing, entertainment, computer, accounting and other trades which put them in a different category from the servant class.

Similarly, the word slave has almost completely vanished from the language and only surfaces now and then when referring to sexual domination, as in "sex slave".

In the Spanish colonial period in the Philippines, the ruling class referred to their servants as muchachos or criados and often treated them like chattel. There was, of course, no notion of human rights during that period of rampant feudalism, when the Spanish pejorative expression used to describe the native was tao.

In the American-sponsored Commonwealth era, politicians used that Tagalog word when they began voicing their concern for the common tao, meaning the ordinary citizen, the man in the street.

The Tagalog use of alipin (slave) which became alila (servant) and finally katulong (helper) likewise marked a historical shift toward a more democratic attitude.

In English, its generally no longer politically correct to refer to one's "maid", but to "the help", thus investing her with some respect and dignity.

During Imelda Marco's time, she gave a grandiose title to the street sweepers, labelling the women as Metro Manila aides. This was ostensibly to make them feel better despite the fact they had to wear lurid red and yellow uniforms and were paid a pittance.

Later there was Cory Aquino who, after one of her first foreign trips as the newly-installed president, returned to relate happily that the mayor of Rome had informed her about the faithful Filipina retainer his family had had for some years.

Soon after this, the phrase "the nation's heroes" began to be bandied about, growing more popular as thousands more migrant workers left the country.

Using that piece of hyperbole has highlighted the condescension displayed by Manila officials toward the millions of Filipinos who have to toil away from their country in order to survive.

The implication contained in those hollow words about heroism is that it's a noble thing to prostitute oneself on the altar of capitalism _ and prop up your government in the process.

In the US today, it's the Mexicans who have been storming the employment gates so as to do the dirty work which Americans prefer not to do. The Latino hordes chasing the American dream are the modern-day heroes who mirror the Filipino experience.

But it isn't just wealthy Westerners who take advantage of destitute migrant workers. The report last year about a Filipino family in the US who kept their maid in virtual slavery showed that Filipinos abuse their own kind, too.

In Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Dr Jefferson Calimlim and his wife Elnora were charged with trafficking and harbouring an illegal alien. Their maid, Erma Martinez, who hails from Camarines Sur province, was kept in their home in virtual slavery, hidden from the eyes of outsiders for two decades.

After US Immigration officials took the Calimlims to trial, Erma spoke of her ordeal of working nonstop for her employers who had lied to her about her visa for 20 years.

There are, of course, countless employers of all nationalities around the world who maltreat their hired help.

Cases of cruelty toward Filipino and Indonesian women in Singapore and Malaysia are commonplace, as they are in Hong Kong where the South China Morning Post featured an editorial on the topic recently.

It said that despite this being the 21st century, life for some domestic workers in the territory is akin to bonded slavery, one in which women (from around Southeast Asia) are forced to endure unreasonable hardship.

One Chinese letter writer to the newspaper responded by acknowledging that treating servants as slaves is deeply rooted in the traditional Chinese mindset.

Sadly, not just Chinese, but Filipinos at home and abroad sometimes behave just as disgracefully toward those in their employ.

The caste system is gradually being eradicated in the world's largest democracy, India, but one still finds class and racist attitudes everywhere.

Still, there's hope in the fact that a nation like Britain, during its recent Walk of Witness, has apologised publicly for its role in the slave trade of past centuries.

But present-day slavery in other countries is something that, sadly, may still be with us for some time to come.

[kiretoce]

More than 10% of Philippine population work outside of their homeland
By Cesar Torres, April 18, 2007

This is probably a first in the history of mankind. More than 10% of Philippine population of 89.5 million are in Diaspora. We are working in various capacities all over the world. We have remitted $15 billion to the homeland in 2005, according to the London-based Economist, an amount which is equivalent to 15.2% of Philippine Domestic Product for that year. Two-thirds of our people rely on us. Obviously, under normal circumstances, we should be given a little importance.

The powerful people in the Philippines cannot just consign us to a position as a lucrative and dependable source of Philippine foreign exchange to help stabilize our economy.

As a matter of fairness and in the national interest, we have to be represented in the affairs of government. When there is massive and legitimate dissatisfaction with the quality of national leadership and system of governance, our people can no longer continue to mass by the millions on a major street in Metro Manila like what happened in 1986 and 2001, in Edsa I and Edsa II, to demand that presidents depart from Malacañang. Resorting to ”direct democracy” through mass actions can no longer guarantee a peaceful change in power. The potential risks have become deadly.

Consequently, less dramatic and less potentially dangerous was the enactment of two legislations by the Philippine Congress affecting overseas Filipinos. In 2003 a law allowing “Dual Citizenship,” Republic Act 9225, was passed. It allowed natural-born Filipino citizens who may have lost their Philippine citizenship due to naturalization as citizens of a foreign country to re-acquire their Philippine citizenship. As of January 2007, the Bureau of Immigration had approved the application for dual citizenship of more than 24,000 former Filipinos.

In the same year, the Overseas Absentee Voting Law (OAVL) was also enacted. This law allows qualified Filipinos outside of the homeland to exercise their right of suffrage.

The latest figure from the Philippine Commission on Elections (Comelec) and the Department of Foreign Affairs indicate that some 504,000 Filipinos have registered as Overseas Absentee Voters.

It is noteworthy that based on the available data, in North and South America as of January 19, 2007, the Consulate General in San Francisco tops the list of the number of registered absentee voters at 4,800 out of a total of 13,083. For the same period, Los Angeles recorded 154 and Honolulu 20. Needless to say, the figures in these two cities are dismal, considering the great number of Filipinos in those places.

The San Francisco Consulate General also accounts for some 6,500 dual citizens out of the 24,000 or so all over the world. This is more than 27% of the total worldwide. In fact, about 50 Filipino Americans are sworn in as Filipino citizens every week.

Participation in Philippine governance by exercising the right of suffrage is one way of being involved more closely in the affairs of the homeland. The Overseas Absentee Voters and the dual citizens who have registered to vote can help in the selection of the more qualified and competent legislators. It is unfortunate, however, that the right of suffrage is confined to voting for President, Vice President, Senators, and Party List representatives. Overseas Absentee Voters would prefer to vote for their congressmen and governors because they have a direct impact on their hometowns and communities more than senators and Party List representatives.

Aside from participating in the election of their Senators, Party List Congressmen, Presidents and Vice Presidents, there is now an intensifying clamor among the 10 million Filipinos all over the world that they should have the right to be voted on as candidates for political offices without renouncing their other citizenship. It is argued that the right to vote implies the corresponding right to be voted on. If one is a dual citizen of, say, the United States and the Philippines, and U.S. laws do not prohibit Philippine citizenship while retaining American citizenship, Global Filipino Nation advocates such as Dr. Jose V. Abueva, Victor Barrios, Lito Gutierrez, Carmen Colet, Evelio Flores, Aida Barrios, Morgan Benedicto, University of San Francisco Professor Jun Jun Villegas of the Global Filipinos Coalition, UP lawyers Johannes Ignacio and May Ann Teodoro, journalists such as Greg Makabenta and Perry Diaz in the United States, and other concerned civic Filipino leaders all over the world such as Bong Amora, Sultan Rudy Dianalan, Bong Karno, Gerry Cuares in the Middle East, and Jun Aguilar and Leo Santiago whose network extend to sailors and Filipino workers all over the world, passionately argue that dual citizens should have the right to be candidates for political office or to be appointed to public offices in the Philippines.

This advocacy is now being hotly contested in the Philippines. Theodore Makabulos Aquino or Kuya Ted, a nephew of the assassinated martyr Ninoy Aquino, who is both a Filipino and an American citizen has filed his certificate of candidacy as an independent candidate for Senator this May 14, 2007 election. A graduate of the University of the Philippines, president of the UP Alumni Association of America, a volunteer in the Transfer of Knowledge and Technology program to the Philippines of the United Nations Development Program, an engineering and environmental consultant in America, the Comelec has disqualified his candidacy because he has not renounced his American citizenship. A request for reconsideration has been submitted. As we go to press, a decision is now being awaited. If the decision is adverse, then off to the Philippine Supreme Court it will be. It is imperative that the highest court in the land should rule on this critical issue.

In these critical times when mankind is faced with the deadly challenges of terrorism, global warming, globalization, intensifying poverty, environmental degradation, revolutionary movements, and hunger in the Philippines, our leaders cannot continue to lean on traditional and hackneyed ideas of citizenship and political participation. In California, the eight largest economy in the world, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is not only a dual citizen. He is a Triple Citizen. He is American, Austrian, and European Union Citizen. New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson is a dual citizen. He is American and Mexican. The Philippines needs to take this “New Reality”, in the words of Mr. Robert Ceralvo, an outstanding Filipino and IT engineer, into consideration.

In addition to the foregoing types of representation, the Philippines can learn from the system in Italy. Italians who are outside of Italy, those in what are known as “Foreign Constituencies,” are represented in the Italian legislature. Six senators and twelve deputies represent these “Foreign Constituencies” in the Italian legislature.

After the election on May 14, it is more or less certain that the issue of Charter Change will be addressed again. We are not familiar with all the details of the draft Philippine Constitution that the House of Representatives wanted to impose on the Filipino people. Whatever it is, the 10 million Filipinos can no longer be regarded as just brutalized and maligned domestic helpers and exploited Filipinos. They have every right to participate in shaping the kind of society that their fathers, mothers, sons, daughters, relatives, and fellow Filipinos are hoping for – the dream of a progressive, peaceful, respectable, and just Philippine society. They are paying with their lives, with their misery, with their pain for this dream.

[kiretoce]

DEMAND AND SUPPLY

The world knows from first hand experience with our OFWs that we are good workers and top notch professionals, making them the best incentive to come here and invest. And one of these days, their talents would be used to bring to the motherland the economic gains they helped bring for the countries they worked in.

A Filipina graced the cover of the New York Times magazine last weekend. No, she isn’t a supermodel or a celebrity. She is much better than that. She is an OFW. Rosalie Comodas Villanueva, who grew up in the tough neighborhood of Leveriza, is a nurse at Al Rahba Hospital in Abu Dhabi. She makes $24,000 a year — compared to the $1,200 she made while working here at home. Her parents have been taking care of her two children for years. The lengthy feature honors OFW sagas, Rosalie’s, her family’s and many others like her.

There is no more doubt that our OFWs are now a world class phenomenon. Nearly 10% of our 89 million people live abroad. About 3.6 million are OFWs, another 3.2 million have migrated permanently, largely to the United States, and 1.3 million more are thought to be overseas illegally. There are a million OFWs in Saudi Arabia alone, followed by Japan , Hong Kong, the United Arab Emirates and Taiwan. OFWs are in at least 170 countries, and about a quarter of the world’s sailors come from the Philippines. They send home $15 billion a year, saving not just the economy but a succession of governments from a rebellion by the jobless and hungry poor.

I once made the joke that there is no need for our people to learn English because in a few more years, the world will understand Tagalog. Imagine all the Filipina nannies from Hong Kong to Rome to Toronto and London and who’s going to say they aren’t teaching more than a word of Tagalog to the young children they are taking care of. I think it was writer Jessica Zafra who once declared that we will one day conquer the world: today their bedrooms and bathrooms but tomorrow, the world!

Indeed, as Jason DeParle, the author of the lengthy NYT magazine article observed, the Philippines has exported labor for at least 100 years. The pineapple plantation workers of Hawaii, who left the Philippines in the early 1900s come to mind. Greg Macabenta traced an early colony of Filipinos in the New Orleans area, descendants of Filipinos who might have jumped ship during the Galleon trade between Acapulco and Manila.

This modern migration we are seeing today took shape 30 years ago under Ferdinand Marcos. And we were not alone. A number of Asian and Latin American countries were sending migrants abroad for the same reasons. A growing number of economists see migrants, and the money they send home, DeParle wrote, as a part of the solution to global poverty.

This view of effectively making the poor pay for development is distasteful. "It risks obscuring the personal price that migrants and their families pay. It could be used to gloss over, or even justify, the exploitation of workers. And it could offer rich countries an excuse for cutting foreign aid and other development efforts," DeParle wrote.

The worse part is how the phenomenon makes it easy for governments to develop a dependence on worker remittances. Migrants all over the world, according to DeParle, sent home some $300 billion last year. In contrast, the world spent $104 billion on foreign aid.

According to DeParle, the Philippines, which received $15 billion in formal remittances in 2006, ranked fourth among developing countries behind India ($25 billion), China ($24 billion) and Mexico ($24 billion). "Remittances make up three percent of the GDP in Mexico but 14% in the Philippines.

DeParle continues: "Despite fears that the money goes to waste, a growing literature shows positive effects. Remittances cut the poverty rate by 11% in Uganda and six percent in Bangladesh, according to studies cited by the World Bank, and raised education levels in El Salvador and the Philippines.

"Being private, the money is less susceptible to corruption than foreign aid; it is also better aimed at the needy and ‘countercyclical’ — it rises in response to slumps and natural disasters. Remittances help reduce government borrowing costs, saving the Philippines about half a billion dollars in interest each year… And consumption among the poor is hardly a bad thing."

The downside, DeParle writes, "is the risk of dependency, among individuals waiting for a check or for rulers (like Marcos) who use the money to avoid economic reforms… No country has escaped poverty with remittances alone. ‘Remittances can’t solve structural problems,’ said Kathleen Newland of the Migration Policy Institute, a Washington research group. ‘Remittances can’t compensate for corrupt governments, nepotism, incompetence or communal conflict…’"

Then… there are the social costs. "Among the biggest worries, in the Philippines and beyond, are the ‘left behind’ kids, who are alternately portrayed as dangerous hoodlums and consumerist brats. Some people fear that their gadgets and clothes, sent from guilty parents abroad, corrupt village values."

Still, studies have found out that overall, "the migrants’ kids did better in school, had better physical health, experienced less anxiety and were more likely to attend church…one theory is that remittances compensate for the missing parent’s care. The study found migrants’ kids taller and heavier than their counterparts, suggesting higher caloric intake, and much more likely to attend private school… There is no doubt that migration has costs… The point is that not migrating has costs, too — the cost of wrenching poverty."

The growth in migration, DeParle admits, "has roiled the West, but demographic logic suggests it will only continue. Aging industrial economies need workers. People in poor countries need jobs. Transportation and communication have made moving easier. And the potential economic gains are at record highs… with about one Filipino worker in seven abroad at any given time, migration is to the Philippines what cars once were to Detroit: its civil religion. A million Overseas Filipino Workers left last year, enough to fill six 747s a day."

This is why for me, the OFW phenomenon is a source of hope for the future. As I told a group of foreign businessmen last week, " with all our negatives in factors of production important to investors, it seems our real plus factor lies with our human resource. I am banking my hope in that large population of OFWs who will one day come home with new ideas, new dreams and a stronger determination to make political leaders accountable."

The world knows from first hand experience with our OFWs that we are good workers and top notch professionals, making them the best incentive to come here and invest. And one of these days, their talents would be used to bring to the motherland the economic gains they helped bring for the countries they worked in.

[venntro]

S.Korea to offer foreigners residency to ease skills shortage

SEOUL (AFP) - South Korea said Wednesday it will grant skilled foreign manual workers permanent residency to ease a chronic labour shortage in small- and medium-sized industries.

The justice ministry said in a statement that the move, to take effect next January, is also aimed at increasing the nation's industrial competitiveness and at boosting tax revenues.

At present, only foreign professionals are eligible for permanent residency if they have at least five years of work experience and certificates of qualification.

They should also have property, a basic understanding of the Korean language and culture and no criminal record.

Officials quoted by Yonhap news agency expect the new system to attract 2,500 to 4,000 experienced foreign manual workers to South Korea by around 2009.

There are now about 500,000 foreign workers, including illegal aliens, in the country, according to ministry statistics.

South Korea is faced with a rapidly aging population due to one of the world's lowest birthrates. In January, the labour ministry said it plans a law that will ban companies from discriminating against elderly job-seekers.

[kiretoce]

OFWs to US, Canada doubled in 2006

The number of Filipino workers who left for North America more than doubled in 2006 compared to the previous year, Labor Secretary Arturo Brion said on Friday.

Brion said Filipino workers deployed to the United States jumped to 11, 406 in 2006, which was 7, 278 more than the 4, 128 who left in 2005. The figure elevated the US to the 11th rank among the top destinations of documented OFWs across the globe.

Quoting figures from the Bureau of Labor and Employment Statistics (BLES), Brion said Filipino workers who went to Canada last year grew from 3, 629 in 2005 to 6, 413, making Canada the 17th top destination among more than 180 host countries around the world.

Brion said growth in the OFW deployment to US and Canada is significant considering that documented workers are at the heart of the Philippines’ international acknowledged global migration management system.

The global migration management system of the Philippines revolves around a "circular" process of migration wherein skilled OFWs on legitimate work visas are properly contracted and deployed for overseas jobs, the labor chief explained.

He said that after the OFWs complete their work contract during a specified period, they return to the country either to be reintegrated into the economic mainstream, or rehired, on renewed visas, for overseas work.

"The Philippine system of managing migration on a global scale is recognized by no less than the United Nations, primarily because it averts and prevents illegal entry of alien workers prejudicial to both the host and home countries of migrants," Brion cited.

According to him, the initial growth in OFW deployment to Canada has been spurred by the recent accord forged by the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) and the Ministry of Advanced Education and Employment in Saskatchewan for "Cooperation in the Fields of Labor, Employment, and Human Resource Development."

But above all, he said the growth in deployment in both countries is attributable to the role of documented OFWs in providing the needed services and skills to boost their economic growth and graying populations.

BLES's statistical data reveal that prior to a 176 percent (+7,278) growth to 11,406 last year, the annual deployment of documented OFWs to the US, in the past five years, totaled 3,405 in 2000, 4,689 in 2001, 4,058 in 2002, 3,831 in 2003, 3,831 in 2004, and 4,128 in 2005.

Likewise, the BLES's figures showed that documented OFW deployment to Canada totaled 2,020 in 2000, 3,132 in 2001, 3,535 in 2002, 4,006 in 2003, 4,453 in 2004, and 3,629 in 2005, before increasing by 76.71 percent (+2,784) to 6,413 in 2006.

[smokingunmanila]

These are documented only...yung mga iba nag tNt eh baka 100 times...

[Animo]

By Armand Nocum

MADRID, Spain -- Spaniards are scheming, arrogant aristocrats who look down on Filipinos every chance they get. That’s the Spanish colonial image straight out of the novels of the national hero, Jose Rizal, that had been seared into the consciousness of the average Filipino. After all, there were wholesale abuses by the conquistadores.

That was then. Today’s Filipinos are re-discovering the Spaniards as a lovable people. Take the Filipino caregivers sent here to open up the unexplored field of caregiving. They praise the Spanish people as genteel, polite, hospitable, friendly and laid back.

“They are hospitable and generous ... maybe we got our world-famous trait of being hospitable from them,” said Cristina Canuelo of Mandaluyong City, who was among the first batch of 40 out of 100,000 Filipinos to be sent here.

Canuelo, who works at the Los Nogales Nursing Homes here said: “This is really a blessing for us.” She giggled as she posed for a picture with Labor Secretary Patricia Sto. Tomas.

The outgoing labor secretary worked to “open up” Spain’s health care market, which would need one million caregivers in five years.

In an interview at the Los Nogales Nursing Homes, Sto. Tomas said Filipino caregivers and other skilled OFWs were unable to penetrate the Spanish market because of strict immigration rules and the inability of most Filipinos to speak the Spanish language.
Domestic helpers only

Although Spain has some 40,000 Filipino workers, they are mostly hired as domestic helpers by their respective employers with little or no government involvement.

But the memorandum of undertaking to be signed by Sto. Tomas with her Spanish counterpart provides for highly skilled Filipinos to work here in large numbers following the easing of immigration restrictions.

Pioneering 40

Addressing the 40 caregivers who arrived here beginning the middle of June, Sto. Tomas advised them to show the best of Filipino skills and caregiving abilities to ensure that the “pilot project” started by the 40 OFWs would succeed and lead to the entry of more Filipinos.

Pascual Berlanga, owner of the Los Nogales Nursing Homes and who employs some of the caregivers, told them in Spanish: “We need a lot of people to take care of the elderly people. The opportunity to work in the health care industry is rich for you and us.”

Sto. Tomas cautioned the caregivers about the onset of homesickness that may hit them in a month or so.

Joey Dugay of Tarlac, who arrived here on June 15, was confident the kindness of the people here would see him through.

“They are very kind to us ... more so if we tell them that they had been our colonizers for 400 years and we had imbibed their culture, traits, religion,” he said. “They really shake their heads with amazement when we tell them this.”

Like home

Dugay, who works at the Residencia Pacifico nursing homes, said he felt “like home here” due to the many similarities in the Spanish and Filipino cultures.

“I will adapt here very well. They go out of their way to assist us in many ways,” he said of his employers who gave them cellular phones on top of their salaries of about 1,400 euros (roughly P99,400) a month.

Rena Rosario Martinez Medallo, who hails from the Chavacano-speaking Zamboanga City, loves this place so much that she has already started working on her papers to avail herself of the privilege allowing her family of four to come to Spain in two year’s time.

“This is just like Zamboanga City,” she said.

http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/inquire...rticle_id=7375

[Animo]

By Veronica Uy
INQUIRER.net
Last updated 06:04pm (Mla time) 05/03/2007


MANILA, Philippines -- Filipinos in the United States joined the thousands of immigrants who had taken to the streets to protest the “inhumane” US immigration laws, to push for legalization, and call for an end to raids and deportation, according to an e-mail to INQUIRER.net by a Filipino group there.

The National Alliance for Filipino Concerns (Nafcon) said Filipinos marched under its banner and those of Bayan USA, both active coalition members of the New York May 1st Coalition for Immigrant Rights.

“Filipinos in the US have a lot at stake in this fight for immigrant rights, especially as the third largest immigrant group in the US,” said Michelle Saulon of the Philippine Forum, a community service organization in Queens and founding member of the Nafcon.

She said that the conditions in the Philippines made Filipinos leave the country and that opposing “inhumane immigration legislation in host countries such as the US when we get here is really a continuation of our fight to survive.”

Saulon and Yancy Gandionco of the Anakbayan Filipino Youth Collective were among the individual program committee members that organized a multi-cultural mix of speakers for the May 1 program.

After months of attending coalition meetings, both Saulon and Gandionco pushed for prominent Filipino representation on the rally stage.

Cling Corotan of Sandiwa, a national Filipino-American youth alliance, co-emceed the event while Christina Hilo of Bayan USA delivered a speech in Filipino, Spanish, and English. Anakbayan also offered a Filipino song entitled “Awit Ng Pag-Asa” (Song of Hope) sang by a quintet of the youth organization's members.

Hilo drove the point of recognizing the root causes of migration when considering the ongoing immigration debate.

“We are not just human resources fulfilling cheap labor demands here in the US. We are families broken apart, mothers and fathers leaving their kids behind, and parentless generations in our home country. The bills coming out of Congress simply do not recognize the human stories, not to mention the economic reasons, behind immigrant workers,” he said.

Hilo also said that Filipinos suffered from the longest wait periods for family sponsorship visas -- up to 23 years.

Nafcon said the indignation actions were also being planned in response to the number of arrests and show of police brutality against protesters in New York, Los Angeles, and other cities.

The protests were against unpopular bill proposals in the US Congress.

http://globalnation.inquirer.net/new...ticle_id=63891

[kiretoce]

Filipinos replace Mexicans as resort workers

PHOENIX - Back in the Philippines, Simeon Andagan had a family, a home, a degree and a management position at a top hotel. He left it all behind because he could earn more money making beds for $10.50 an hour at the Fairmont Scottsdale Princess in Arizona.

The 36-year-old is among 300 Filipinos who landed in the Phoenix area in October and will stay through May, mostly working as entry-level housekeepers and dishwashers.

The men and women provide an attractive alternative to workers from Mexico because Mexican laborers are seen as a high risk for overstaying their visas.
The Filipino workers come here because paychecks back home are small and opportunities are limited.

Resorts need them because they grapple with a severe staffing shortage in the winter and spring months, when millions of tourists spill into the state for sunshine, shopping and golf.

"My friends say America is a land of opportunity, a land of milk and honey, because there is a lot of work," Andagan said. "So many Filipinos are degree-holders, but they can't find work."

Seven hotels, with the assistance of an international recruitment company, brought the employees here for the first time this year on seasonal employment visas known as H-2Bs.

Andagan earned a bachelor's degree in commerce with an emphasis in management and worked 17 years for a top hotel company in his native Philippines, an island nation of 84 million people off the southeast coast of Asia. At the Princess in Scottsdale, he knows laundry workers who were teachers, housekeepers who were advertising executives.

His hometown's economy is so depressed that the lowest job in America is more lucrative than the highest job there, he said. A month's pay in the Philippines was $500, which would not buy him a single night at the luxury resort during the high season.

Now, he makes $2,000 a month. In a matter of weeks, he worked his way up from a room attendant to a housekeeping supervisor. Like most of his co-workers, he works overtime, saves up and sends money to his family. His new bounty will put his 19-year-old son through college.

"I always call my son, every day," Andagan said. "I miss my family, the happenings every day. All of my friends are there hanging out every day."
Hotels say they look for workers in English-speaking countries with service-oriented cultures.

The U.S. Department of Labor grants up to 66,000 H-2B visas every year, according to its Web site. But considering that those are parceled out among dozens of countries, they can be difficult for workers to obtain.
As a result, the visas are highly coveted.

"Some embassies feel they have sent enough workers over, so they are not going to approve any more," said John Bergmann, an independent consultant who works with an Orlando, Fla.-based international recruiting company called Delivering Human Innovation. "We recruit so heavily from the Philippines and have had such great success there, I think we know the well is going to dry up and we have to find some other good resources."

The rules of seasonal visas are clearly defined:

● Hotels must advertise jobs in their own community first to ensure that American workers won't be displaced.

● Before they arrive, international workers undergo drug tests and background checks and pay about $1,000 in processing fees.

● Once here, visa-holders earn at least minimum wage and pay taxes. They can stay in one city for up to 10 months, and they can bounce between seasonal destinations for up to three years.

● The workers must go home and reapply for the program after three years, or they can apply for a green card to stay in the United States. After that, they can apply for citizenship.

Virtually all the Filipino hotel workers are clamoring to "roll" to another property. Their Arizona jobs end May 31, when the heat drives hotel guests away. Andagan said many international workers see the seasonal visa as a path to citizenship.

"It's only my dream," he said of coming to America. "It's really hard to enter this country. When you go to the embassy, nobody can pass. Now, I'm here. This is it." He said he will stay as long as he is allowed.

[kiretoce]

Handover alters profile of Hong Kong's foreigners



On Sundays, however, it becomes noticeable for a different reason -- its canopy-like construction offers ideal shade for hundreds of maids who shelter there on their weekly day off.

Hong Kong's transformation on a Sunday is legendary: the city's armies of 250,000 foreign domestic helpers turn streets that usually bustle with shoppers into noisy picnic sites where they eat pre-cooked meals, swap manicures and massages and catch up on gossip.

But in a reflection of the demographic shifts seen in the region in the 10 years since Hong Kong reverted from British to Chinese rule, the make-up of the Sunday gatherings -- like Hong Kong's 400,000-strong ethnic community -- has changed.

"We don't have our own home. We all live in different parts of Hong Kong so here is the only place and the only day when we can meet every week," Cherrie Manila, a 39-year-old Filipino maid, told AFP.

"I'm quite happy to hang out with my friends on the streets," said Manila, sitting on a piece of newspaper laid out for her and her friends.

Hong Kong's 115,000 Filipinos make up the city's single largest immigrant community and the majority, like Manila, are working here as maids.

Still, the number of Filipinos has fallen by more than 5,000 since 1996, because of tighter visa regulations and better prospects further afield, said Eni Lestari from Hong Kong-based NGO Asian Migrants Coordinating Body.

"The number of Filipinos is falling because they are moving to Western and European countries for work," she said.

Tighter immigration regulations have driven many to take advantage of lower bars in countries such as Canada and the European Union, Lestari added.

Indonesians, however, are more than filling the gap.

Hit by natural disasters, economic crisis and a shortage of jobs, Jakarta has tried to cut unemployment by encouraging its people to seek work overseas, said Lestari.

As a result, the Indonesian population here has shot up fivefold since 1996 to 110,576.

One of them is Anna Yulianda, a 28-year-old domestic helper, who said she sends 80 percent of her 4,500 Hong Kong dollar (577 US) monthly salary home to support her family and for her two young sisters' university education.

She hopes eventually to get married and have a big family. Just not right now. "I still need to make more money first. Only money can bring happiness, right?"

But tight visa restrictions, an increasingly competitive labour market and precious little in the way of a social safety net mean immigrants still occupy the lower rungs of society here.

Such hardships are brutally apparent in the Nepalese community, which once enjoyed the patronage of the British army's now defunct Gurkha regiment that provided security during the colonial era.

Ex-Gurkha Tamang Hembahadur is among 16,000 Nepalese who have been left to fend for themselves and their children.

Although many of their children have been trained as engineers, doctors and lawyers, often they are forced by the language barrier to take low-paid and low-skilled jobs in bars and restaurants, he said.

"We are treated like outsiders and a different class," said Hembahadur, who came here 22 years ago aged 23 and is now a security company supervisor.

"We had been devoted to the Hong Kong people, but after the handover, the government never mentions what the Gurkhas did, it never says that the Gurkhas are brave. They forgot us," the father of three said.

Perhaps the biggest demographic change of all since the handover, however, has been in the British community.

Once the largest expatriate legion in Hong Kong, their numbers have dropped to 25,000, just a seventh of the total recorded on the census one year before the handover.

Simon Kay is typical of those who arrived here before the handover, taking advantage of visa regulations that allowed Britons easy entry and work permits -- rights that have since been scrapped.

"I was running away from a family situation -- my best mate from school was here. I just wanted to take a break from home," said Kay, a 39-year-old magazine design manager from Edinburgh.

"It was easy to find jobs here. You could just walk into any pub and get a job.

"But job opportunities got less and less over the years because you are now expected to speak Cantonese for many positions. There are not as many jobs for the expats here now."

[kiretoce]

Filipinos face stiffer rules on work visa

Saudi Arabia, Taiwan, South Korea and Kuwait now require Filipinos applying for working visas to submit certifications on the authenticity of their passports and they will have to get such documents from the Department of Foreign Affairs.

Assistant Secretary Domingo Lucenario Jr. said the foreign affairs department was surprised at the new requirement that has caused a sudden surge of applicants for passport certification at the agency and officials estimate that more than 10,000 people now troop to the foreign affairs office on Roxas Boulevard every day.

“There was no official communication from the embassies of these governments on the new requirement for Filipino workers. But just the same, we provide our nationals with the certification that they need because we don’t want to prejudice their applications,” Lucenario said.

Lucenario said the foreign office has asked the embassies of South Korea, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Taiwan to send them an explanation of the new requirement for Filipino workers. The foreign affairs department official said he has yet to meet with officials of these embassies to discuss the new requirement for Filipino workers.

The certification of the passport seeks to establish that the authenticity of the travel document owing to the rampant use of fake passports by many Filipinos seeking jobs overseas.

Moreover, the Philippines is still using non-machine readable, or manual passports until June due to a pending lawsuit that prevented the foreign affairs office from issuing machine-readable passports which is now required by International Civil Aviation Organization.

Lucenario said Saudi Arabia was the first to make the new employment requirement and the three other countries followed suit.

He said the number of applicants for certification of passport increased from 100 to 1,500 for the last three weeks. Applicants for authentication of documents also increased from 1,000 to 2,000 a day to at least 4,000 every day.

Lucenario explained that the increase of applicants was due to the recent move of the government to make the foreign affairs department, the sole agency to authenticate all travel documents.

Malacañang and the foreign affairs department used to handle authentication of documents, but beginning early April this year, it has abolished the authentication division and transferred the duty to the foreign affairs department.

Meanwhile, the number of applicants for new passports also increased from 2,000 to 2,500 everyday to 4,000 to 5,000 every day.

“But we really lack enough staff to address the increase in these documents and we cannot hire new staff because of the election ban,” Lucenario said, adding that the foreign affairs department has already asked the Commission on Elections to approve their request to hire 50 more staff for the department’s consular division.

[smokingunmanila]

Filipinos learns spanish:


Spanish ba itong mga to?


1. Punyeta
2. Punyemas
3. Iyodiputa
4. andele
5. favor lang?
6. madre mia
7. de kalidad
8. bobita
9. animal!
10. por dyos por santo
11.que horror
12. que barbaridad

and what do they mean?

[Danny Chua]

These are the only ones I know:...
3. Iyodiputa = should be "hijo de puta" = our very own "p.i. mo".
4. andele = faster
6. madre mia = "by my mother!" = expression of surprise?
7. de kalidad = good quality
9. animal! = same meaning as in English...
10. por dyos por santo = "for the love of god and all the saints" = expression of exasperation
11. que horror = "what horror!" = expression of disgust
12. que barbaridad = "such barbarism" = expression of disdain

[bitoy]

1. Punyeta = Puñeta (Jakol)
2. Punyemas(Conyemas?) = Coño mas (not sure if that's the meaning of that or where it came from)

[portludlow]

Filipinos abroad mostly executives

http://www.manilastandardtoday.com/?...ws6_june2_2007
TWO-THIRDS of the 1.515 million Filipinos working overseas are executives, professionals and skilled workers, and only one in every three is an unskilled worker, according to a survey by the National Statistics Office.

The agency did the survey from April to September 2006, when the workers remitted P102 billion to the Philippines.

That amount did not represent the total salary received by the workers, and “may just be a part of [their] total salary,” the agency says.

The average amount that the Filipino professionals remitted during the period was P91,000, more than double the P38,200 remitted by laborers and unskilled workers.

In recent years, the Philippines has been deploying more women and younger workers abroad.

The NSO estimates that there were 764,000 female Filipino workers and 751,000 male Filipino workers abroad last year, and that most of them came from the so-called Calabarzon area, Metro Manila and Central Luzon.

It says executives comprise about 2.7 percent of all migrant workers; professionals, 8.6 percent; technicians and associate professionals, 6.8 percent; and clerks, 4.3 percent.

The 2006 survey covered only Filipinos working abroad during the survey period and those who were at home on vacation from their jobs.

The NSO polled contract workers, other Filipino workers abroad with valid working visas or work permits, and those who had no working visas or work permits but were employed and working full time in other countries.

Migrant workers in Asia made up 78.3 percent of all those surveyed, and they remitted the most money.

The central bank expects remittances to top $14 billion this year, or about 12 percent of the Philippines’ gross domestic product. Roderick T. dela Cruz

[Animo]

Nakalimutan nyo po iyong: Hala, Leche, Hoy (Oy/Oye), Basura, Pobre, Guapo/a, Pasa, Para (stop or for), Mamá, Papá, Maski (Más que) at marami pang iba. Aabot po ng 5,000+ na salita at hindi lang galing sa wikang Tagalog.

Originally Posted by smokingunmanila

Filipinos learns spanish:


Spanish ba itong mga to?


1. Punyeta
2. Punyemas
3. Iyodiputa
4. andele
5. favor lang?
6. madre mia
7. de kalidad
8. bobita
9. animal!
10. por dyos por santo
11.que horror
12. que barbaridad

and what do they mean?

[kiretoce]

Demand for Filipino DH drops 10 percent

Deployment of Filipino domestic helpers to the Middle East dropped by 9 to 10 percent in the first five months of 2007, but Labor Secretary Arturo Brion refused to attribute the decline to the government’s policy doubling the minimum salary for household service workers to $400 beginning December 15, 2006.

Brion told newsmen in an interview that the demand for HSWs has gone down while job orders for skilled workers and professionals like nurses, engineers and teachers have increased.

The drop in the deployment of domestic helpers did not seem to bother the labor chief at all. “What is most important is that the deployment of our professionals and skilled workers is going up," he stressed.

He noted that between January and May, professionals such as nurses, engineers, teachers and other skilled workers comprise the biggest bulk of deployment while domestic workers had fallen to third place.

“Our HSW are now in No.3 and leading in the deployment is the professionals and skilled workers," Brion said.

Labor attaché Romeo Young earlier reported that the Philippine Overseas Labor Office in Oman has verified at least 25 job orders in the first three months of the year, representing a significant increase from 18 job orders during the same period in 2006.

He said job orders in Oman for Filipino workers have increased and labor officials noted a shift from domestic helpers to services and technical workers.

The job orders would benefit at least 4, 234 Filipino workers, according to POEA Administrator Rosalinda Baldoz.

She said the shift is a positive sign that the reform package for Filipino household workers implemented since December 2006 has become effective in improving the quality of Filipino manpower required by foreign employers.

The labor attaché reported that job requests for household workers decreased to a low of 15 percent of the total job orders during the first quarter, from 60 percent in January to March 2006.

Baldoz noted that 52 percent of the demand was on service industry workers such as sales persons, waiters and waitresses, beauticians, building workers; and 16 percent from the engineering and construction industry sector.

She said she anticipates the shift in the quality of manpower demand in the Middle East, not only because of the implementation of the reform package for Filipino household service workers but also of the development of the tourism, oil and industry sectors in the region.

Another labor official, who did not want to be named, attributed the drop in the deployment of domestic helpers partly to the salary adjustment. He said many employers in the Middle East opted to extend the contract of their Filipino household service worker instead of giving her a plane ticket to go back to the Philippines.

The official said this was a way to avoid hiring back the same worker at the higher monthly salary of $400.

“Sa mga domestic helpers na nag-expire na ang mga kontrata hindi na sila umuuwi para mag-renew kasi ang ginagawa doon ngayon sa Middle East ng mga employers nila instead of buying them plane tickets ibinibigay na lang ito sa domestic workers to extend their contracts," the official said.

Other Middle Eastern employers hired domestic helpers from India and other Asian countries that offered lower salary for their workers.

Administrator Marianito Roque of the Overseas Workers Welfare Administration (OWWA)explained in a separate interview that only the new contracts processed by the POEA are covered by the US$400 minimum salary for HSW.

Asked if it is likely that employers are really extending the contracts of their workers without the approval from the Philippine government, Roque said, “It’s possible".

Earlier, recruiters from the GCC or the Cooperation Council of the Arab States in the Gulf had threatened to recommend a ban to Filipino domestic helpers until the Philippine government revises the policy mandating the $400 monthly salary and, at the same time, imposing a $13 penalty on foreign employers who would not comply with the contract provisions, such as delayed payment or underpayment of agreed salaries.

Members of the GCC are Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain and Oman.

In Bahrain, the demand for skilled Filipino workers has also posted a steady increase.

Philippine Ambassador Eduardo Maglaya noted a 17.7 percent increase in the number of Filipinos either hired or rehired in 2006, or from 9, 968 in 2006 to 11,736 in 2006.

"Filipinos have found a niche in Bahrain's labor market - which is in the service industry - and we expect more workers, particularly professionals, to come. There is also a need for middle and upper management level workers in the IT and banking industries, said Philippine Ambassador Eduardo Maglaya.

He also noted the signing of the memorandum of understanding between the Philippines and Bahrain in April this year, which will pave the way for Filipino nurses and doctors to go to Bahrain, while Bahraini health workers would come to the Philippines as part of the exchange program."

Maglaya said that the continued growing demand for workers from the Philippines represented the strong preference shown by Bahraini companies to Filipinos.

Since the $400 monthly salary rate took effect in January, Maglaya said the embassy has already processed more than 100 contracts for Filipino domestic workers.

"The Philippine government imposed this rule for a good reason and we only hope that others would follow suit. As for skilled Filipino workers, three of the biggest recruiters of Filipinos in Bahrain actually do not need to go to recruiting agencies - most of these giant companies send their own officials to the Philippines to hire workers," Maglaya said.

About 30,000 of the estimated 40,000 Filipinos in Bahrain are workers, 5,000 are dependents and another 5,000 were classified as undocumented workers.

[Animo]

The Philippine Overseas Labor Office (POLO) in Madrid has successfully cornered high-end and better-paying jobs for overseas Filipino workers from the largest Spanish engineering and construction company, the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) disclosed Saturday.

Labor and Employment Secretary Arturo D. Brion, citing a report from Madrid-based Labor Attache Ramon T. Tionloc Jr., said the Tecnicas Reunicas, S.A (TRSA) has sought POLO’s approval for the recruitment of 45 Filipino engineers from the Philippines.

TRSA is the largest Spanish engineering and construction company in the oil and gas sector with existing and forthcoming projects in various countries worldwide. The company was recently awarded by the Saudi Basic Industries Corp. (Sabic) the construction of the phenolics facilities project, which will be implemented by Saudi Kayan Petrochemical Co. in Al-Jubail. Apart from constructing the facilities, TRSA will also carry out the engineering design, procurement, and the management of the project.

Brion said the POLO in Madrid negotiated with the TRSA to get the jobs for highly skilled Filipino engineers, adding that the effort is in line with DOLE’s aim to find high-end jobs for OFWs.

“High end jobs ensure better pay and other employment conditions that promote the welfare of OFWs,” said the labor chief. “This has been the main consideration of the labor attaches during a web conference they conducted recently as a group.”

Brion also said that the labor attaches manning the 34 POLOs situated in locations with high concentration of OFWs worldwide have been alerted during the conference to pay closer attention to labor markets that can offer high-end employment opportunities for OFWs.

Tionloc, in his report, said his office found the TRSA’s employment terms and conditions acceptable and favorable to OFWs. The POLO, he said, subsequently approved the request of TRSA to recruit 45 engineers from the Philippines.

The labor attaché also reported that the POLO in Madrid continuously networks with Spanish companies in the engineering and heavy industries sector with projects in the Middle East in a bid to corner more high-end jobs for OFWs.

He further said that his post also closely monitors the developments in Spain’s maritime sector in view of the programs of the Spanish government to shift to the use of liquefied natural gas (LNG) and expand its national fleet through tie-ups with LNG and chemical carriers worldwide.

Brion said that the POLO in Madrid has started networking with Spain’s maritime sector to seek employment opportunities that could be made available for Filipino seafarers, port and other maritime workers.


http://www.manilatimes.net/national/...70617car1.html