To stay or not to stay

The global economic crisis also has a migrant face

Carlito Parungo

Having been displaced by widespread joblessness in their country, Filipino migrant workers face yet another whammy as the global economic crisis forces host countries to start firing and stop hiring migrant labour.

ex Ponto Magazine nr.9

To stay or not to stay. This is the question that has been bugging Marcela for the past couple of months. Her contract as an au pair in the Netherlands is expiring soon and the thought of losing her source of income daunts her to no end. She is a single mother and supports a two-year-old daughter who is now in the care of her parents in the Philippines.

Amid the global economic crisis that is also ravaging the Philippines, going back home at this time is no option for Marcela. But becoming undocumented and finding another job would also be difficult as member countries of the European Union have recently adopted a common policy of imposing stiffer sanctions on employers hiring “illegal” labour.

“Many people will find it ironic that I left my own child behind to take care of other people’s kids. But I have no choice. I really need a decent income to provide not only for her but also for my parents and my three siblings who are still in school,” Marcela tells ex-Ponto.

Together with a group of compatriots belonging to the migrant organisation Migrante-Europe, Marcela is inside this American hamburger dine-in that she jestingly calls their favourite “Filipino” restaurant in Amsterdam, the fast-food chain being also ubiquitous in the Philippines. “Too bad they don’t serve rice here. The place would have been perfect for rice addicts like us,” says the 24-year-old migrant worker who, like any typical Filipino, still manages to remain bubbly despite her predicament.

Marcela, who does not want to use her real name for this article, arrived in the Netherlands last year and now works as an au pair (read: domestic help) for a family of four. Aside from her main task of attending to two toddlers, she is also doing the daily household chores. She gets free food and lodging and is paid €400 a month. When she needs extra money, Marcela moonlights as a house cleaner in what she calls the “underground economy”.

“I may be earning way below the prevailing norm here, but compared with my monthly take-home pay of less than €150 in the Philippines, I’m definitely relatively better off here,” she avers. While the legislated minimum daily wage in the Philippines ranges from €3 to € 5, reports have it that almost a quarter of the population are earning only €1.18 or less a day.

But still, Marcela says the money she regularly sends home is usually not enough to cover all their monthly expenses due to the rising cost of living in the Philippines. “Nonetheless, I’m happy that everyone’s in the pink of health. For I always remind them that getting sick is strictly not allowed in the family, that we don’t have that luxury,” she says, smiling.

Uprooted
Marcela was a primary school teacher in Albay, a province south of Manila known for producing copra, the dried meat of the coconut, which until recently was one of the country’s top export crops. When the market price of copra was hit by a series of nosedives several years ago, many landless coconut farm workers, Marcela’s parents included, were rendered bankrupt and reduced to a hand-to-mouth existence.

“When the family’s income started dissipating I felt it was my turn to go abroad. The only thing that was initially holding me back was my daughter. But my inability to bring enough food on the table because of my measly income would eventually be the deciding factor,” Marcela recalls.

Being a teacher had always been a childhood dream, but the idea of working as a domestic help did not in any way deter Marcela from going abroad because “pride cannot feed you.” Knowing a fellow teacher who had earlier left for the Netherlands under the au pair programme also made it easier for her to take the plunge and follow the same route.

Marcela: “So what I did was to get in touch with my au pair friend who, in turn, referred me to an agency in Manila. After my father was able to borrow the money I needed for the required placement fee and other expenses, I was able to finally come here last year.”

A Philippine government ban on the deployment of female migrant workers under the au pair programme has been in place since 1998. It was imposed following a deluge of reports of abuse and prostitution of au pairs in the Netherlands. Despite the ban the number of au pairs in Europe continues to rise. But that’s another story.

“My hosts are quite happy to have me work for them,” Marcela says. “Both of them are now working full time because my wards’ mother has finally been freed from domestic work.”

Unfortunately for Marcela, the Dutch government does not recognize the real work many au pairs do, and being one who is here officially for “cultural exchange” she is allowed to stay for only a year. Before her visa expires, she has the choice of either returning to the Philippines or finding other employment elsewhere.

“How I wish I could still work here legally. I have no savings yet, and I’m still repaying the debt my father incurred for my travel.” The former teacher then asks, “Would you know of a place where I could apply as a domestic help?”

Joblessness
Grace Punongbayan, coordinator of Migrante-Europe, has heard similar stories. “Marcela’s story could very well be the story of any migrant Filipino eking out a living in all corners of the world,” the migrant leader says. “Since the outbreak of the global crisis, many have lost jobs and have no place to go. They are in limbo.”

Migrante-Europe is part of Migrante International, the Philippines’ biggest migrant organisation that defends the rights and welfare of overseas Filipino workers (OFWS) and is the most vocal in calling for an end to the government’s labour-export policy.

“That Marcela is contemplating becoming an undocumented (resident), despite all the hazards that go with it, like possible imprisonment, only shows how desperate her situation has become. And many have in fact chosen to stay behind and lead the life of an ‘illegal’ rather than return home and face more uncertainties,” says Punongbayan.

Punongbayan describes the current economic downturn as a “double whammy” for migrant workers. Having been displaced by the widespread joblessness in the Philippines even before the implosion of the financial meltdown, they are facing yet another displacement as many host countries started firing and stopped hiring migrant labour.

The exodus back home has in fact started. Between October 2008 and January this year, a total of 5,400 migrant Filipinos from at least 15 countries returned home jobless. Estimates of the total number of OFWs facing layoffs vary. The Philippine government puts the number at about 50,000 to 70,000 workers. Migrant organisations, however, say the figures could be a lot higher, as the depth of the crisis is still unfolding.

A point no one disputes is the fact that reintegrating these returning workers will not be a walk in the park, considering the domestic economy’s perennial inability to generate enough jobs for its people. Exacerbating the situation is the retrenchment binge already taking place on all islands of the archipelago.

Dutch giants such as ING and Philips have announced massive job cuts, while American companies such as Intel and British banks such as Standard Chartered Bank have decided to end their operations in the Philippines altogether. A total of 27 rural banks have gone insolvent. Continuing drops in exports have resulted in job losses. The list goes on.

Labour Secretary Marianito Roque admitted during a recent radio interview that “hundreds are losing their job every day”. Between December 1 and January 19, he reported that some 15,600 workers had been laid off and about 19,000 others had had their working hours reduced.

IBON Foundation, an independent think-tank in Manila, says that the country’s unemployment figures are at their highest. Using government figures in its calculation, it has put the number of unemployed and underemployed in 2008 at 10.7 million, or nearly a third of the total labour force of 36.5 million.

Philippine President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo appears unperturbed, though, even boasting that the government’s “sound macroeconomic policies” have prepared the country to deal with the current downslide. In putting a spin to a one-week, five-nation trip that included a speaking engagement at this year’s World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, for instance, the president had this to say: “(Our) contribution to Davos only means that our strategies, the accomplishment of the administration when it comes to the economy, are recognized by the world.”

Forced migration
Mrs. Arroyo is again in a state of denial, according to Punongbayan.“Instead of admitting that the country has long been in bad shape, Mrs. Arroyo acts as though it were business as usual.”

A youth activist who fled her country of birth in the ‘70s, Utrecht-based Punongbayan also wonders how the Arroyo government could claim being a model of economic success “when all she does is advertise the Philippines as a well of cheap labour and, consequently, cause the break-up of families and ignore the many consequences of this forced migration.”

Nearly nine million Filipinos, or one-tenth of the country’s total population, are now working and living in more than 197 countries and territories around the world. Out of that number,  57 percent are temporary or contract workers, while the rest are immigrants.

The Philippines is the world’s fourth most important source of cheap and skilled labour, after China, India and Mexico. The government even trumpeted as one of its major achievements in 2008 the deployment of 1.327 million Filipinos, which translates to 3,600 Filipinos leaving the country every day. Not content with this “feat”, Arroyo has pledged to export a total of two million workers by 2010.

Through the years, the money remitted by these OFWs has grown tremendously, thus propping up the ailing domestic economy (see table). In 2008 alone OFW remittances have totalled $16.3 billion (€12.7 billion), a 14-percent increase compared with last year.

Representing 10 percent of the country’s gross domestic product (GDP), the total amount of OFW money sent in annually has in fact already surpassed both direct foreign investment and overseas development assistance as the country’s most important source of foreign exchange.

Not a few have criticized the government for relying too much on OFW money.  IBON, for one, has warned against this “overdependence”, saying that the global crisis should serve as a “wake-up call for (a) government (that) has mythologised overseas remittances as some kind of magic bullet for development.”

In a recent paper, IBON lamented that the government, despite the global crisis, “still places high hopes that the steady flow of OFW remittances will buffer the domestic economy. (But) such hopes may turn out misplaced as remittances and incomes of OFW households are at risk.”

For example, the top 10 countries – where 88 percent of OFW money comes from – are also those worst hit by the financial and economic crisis, namely the US, Saudi Arabia, the UK, Italy, Canada, United Arab Emirates (UAE), Japan, Singapore, Hong Kong and Germany.

Besides, the overall growth in labour export has been following a downward trend for many years now. While workers’ deployment abroad rose by 8 percent in recent years, this increase is definitely minuscule if set against the nearly 40-percent growth in previous decades.

How the global crisis will further impact the country’s labour-export policy is indeed a cause for worry, says Migrant’s Punongbayan. “Just imagine the kind of apocalyptic hell that would definitely break loose in the Philippines should the ongoing economic slump further engenders reverse migration and puts more pressure on OFW remittances.”

Global approach
Trouble is, of course, also a-brewing in countries that depend on sending out labour overseas. There are now about 205 million migrants worldwide whose combined annual remittance amounts to a staggering €1.76 trillion. A global approach to this problem, with the migrants themselves taking the lead, is in order, according to Punongbayan.

“That governments and other multilateral agencies like the World Bank and the UN will not put an end to forced migration was once again proven during the 2nd assembly of the GFMD hosted in October last year by the Philippine government,” says Punongbayan.

GFMD stands for Global Forum on Migration and Development, a non-binding government-led process that serves as a venue to discuss migration issues.  The GFMD, which commended the Philippines as a model for “managed migration”, calls on all nations to see migration as a tool “where countries can draw the greatest possible development benefits.”

“In essence, the GFMD is encouraging Southern countries, on the one hand, to institutionalise labour export as a panacea to underdevelopment and the Northern countries, on the other, to avail of this cheap labour for their further development,” Punongbayan says. “The GFMD completely ignores that the continuing unjustNorth-South relations is at the root of the massive poverty and joblessness in the third world.”

To counter the GFMD, Migrante International joined the International Migrants Alliance (IMA) in holding the International Assembly of Migrants and Refugees (IAMR). Migrante-Europe and other Netherlands-based migrant organisations were among the more than 200 delegates from 35 countries that attended the IAMR.

IMA Chairperson Eni Lestari, an Indonesian, said during the IAMR assembly that the World Bank and the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) are using the GFMD to resurrect the World Trade Organisation’s General Agreement on Trade in Services (WTO-GATS). 

The GATS, which failed to take off because of strong opposition from anti-globalization activists, would have led to the further “intensification of commodification of our skilled professionals as cheap labour”, added Hong Kong-based Lestari, who, just like our interviewee Marcela, also works as a domestic help.

In the official statement adopted after the assembly, the IAMR said: “International financial institutions like the World Bank and OECD want to ensure that the poor, debt-ridden countries would be able to pay their huge debts through migrant remittances, thus transforming those remittances as ‘tool for development’.”

The IAMR statement further said: “We condemn these governments, international financial institutions and inter-governmental organisations espousing the neoliberal agenda in the GFMD. They are the culprits, in the first place, why our countries are poor and underdeveloped. They, together with the ruling elite and governments in sending countries, are the ones who have to answer to the people for the devastating effects of their neoliberal policies – joblessness, underemployment, landlessness, inflation, deteriorating social services, among others.”

In the case of the Philippines, Punongbayan says that the worsening poverty in the Philippines should be the best argument against the labour-export policy.

“While there is an urgent need to attend to the myriad of problems suffered by migrants in host countries, such as job loss, being undocumented, discrimination, low salaries, poor working conditions, etc., a solution to why people like Marcela are forced to leave the country in the first place should be the top priority,” says Punongbayan.

Meanwhile, ex-Ponto is still awaiting word from Marcela as to how she has resolved the dilemma we used to open this article.

Read an interview with the Filipino economist Antonio Tujan, IBON’s director for international affairs in ex Ponto nr. 10 (in April)