Filipinos working abroad are a source of money, not reform
Nov 12th 2020NINE MONTHS after Taal volcano erupted, life in the Calabarzon region of the Philippines, south of the capital, Manila, is slowly returning to normal, despite the raging pandemic. Cinders buried houses, destroyed papaya plantations and sent tens of thousands fleeing. Today, the roads have been cleared and the power is back on. Evacuees have returned to patch up homes. Local distilleries producing lambanog, a fierce spirit made from fermented palm sap, have sputtered to life. Few locals, though, are holding their breath for the promised splurge of government assistance. That leaves only one sure source of income: remittances from relatives working abroad.The 2.2m Overseas Filipino Workers (OFWs, as they are typically known) are feted nationally for their sacrifices. Nearly half toil in Saudi Arabia or the Gulf states as maids, drivers or hotel staff. All hotel bands in China seem to have a Filipina singer. Hong Kong has more than 150,000 OFWs and Singapore 120,000, most of them women working as domestic helpers and nannies. Central Hong Kong on a Sunday is like the Philippines writ small: a pavement map of the country’s many languages as Filipinas gather with friends from their region.A fifth of all OFWs are from Calabarzon. One, Bernadette, is a nanny in Hong Kong. Her home in Calaca, in the shadow of the volcano, escaped the worst of the ash fall. But many of her friends have been sending what money they earn (just over HK$5,000, or $645, a month) to help rebuild homes and livelihoods destroyed by the eruption.In other respects, Bernadette’s story is typical. The 40-year-old has worked in Hong Kong for a decade, far from her husband and son. She supports not only them but an elderly father with big medical bills. She has put the son, now 17, through boarding school. Her six siblings call on her when they have a financial emergency. Through all this, she has bought a plot of land back home and built a two-storey house. She and many other OFWs are immensely proud of what they have accomplished. They are welcomed on their annual Christmas trip home (cancelled this year because of the pandemic) as bayani, or heroes. Huge parties are thrown for them. They nearly always pay.OFWs are only one part of a 10m-strong Philippine diaspora. Without the Philippines’ 378,000 seafarers, the global merchant fleet would be sunk. Nurses, doctors and oil and mining engineers the world over make up an expatriate professional class. In all, the diaspora sends home $30bn a year, a tenth of GDP.Politicians recognise the political and economic clout of expatriates. In Calaca, says Bernadette, they woo OFWs with promises of jobs when they return, scholarships for their children or health insurance—“but they are just trying to get our vote.” Presidential candidates or their proxies come to Hong Kong for rallies. Not only do OFWs’ votes count, but loved ones at home will listen to them.On occasion, expats’ social-media campaigns have drawn attention to government corruption or incompetence, such as after the deadly Typhoon Haiyan in 2013. Some academics hope that expatriates, when they return, can in future help reshape the country’s politics, demanding better government and a more responsive approach to the country’s inequalities in the place of graft and the cult of the strongman. There are too few signs of that happening. OFWs do not yet represent the kind of middle class capable of urging change. While remittances can enable upward mobility—Bernadette’s son plans to study aeronautical engineering—they can just as easily be spent by husbands on booze, roast pigs, gambling and lovers. Professionals, meanwhile, are more likely to emigrate permanently.One professional returnee, Ronald Mendoza, dean of the school of government at Ateneo de Manila University, posits another factor: OFWs work largely in authoritarian places, where the model of the strongman is rarely questioned.Most Filipinas in Hong Kong, for example, were bemused by recent pro-democracy protests and approve of their suppression. As for President Rodrigo Duterte, who embodies personal rule and promotes vigilante justice, he remains wildly popular among OFWs. When, at home, this columnist lamented that 18 journalists have been murdered while Mr Duterte has been unremittingly hostile to the press, his Filipina cleaner was indignant, taking it as an insult to her president. Banyan was impelled to mutter an apology.This article appeared in the Asia section of the print edition under the headline “Money but not a class”Reuse this contentThe Trust Project