Brexit woes

LONDON – The iconic telephone booths are still bloody red; English tea is still served with milk; the double-decker buses are charming as ever; and Big Ben, the world’s famous clock, is still towering and famous.

Oh London, you’re still as seductive and vibrant as when I first saw you more than a decade ago.

It seems nothing has changed. The weather is still crazy – sometimes reluctantly sunny or otherwise gray; the air is still crisp; fish and chips are still as popular as the age-old football, and the famous English pubs are still bursting at the seams.

London, population 8.7 million, is still rich in history, yet strikingly modern; old English, yet cosmopolitan.

Twelve years ago, I came here to study business journalism. It seems that nothing much has changed between then and now, except me. At the time, I was young and ready to take on the world. Now, arriving here at seven in the morning with the temperature at two degrees Celsius, I am old, cold to the bones and I can’t even fight jetlag.

Hello, Brexit

But then again, maybe the city has changed, too. Perhaps like the rest of the United Kingdom, it’s no longer the London that I knew. Europeans here would go as far as saying that Britain is now a different country after it decided to leave the 28-member European Union, one of the world’s most powerful political and economic bloc.

With Brexit looming larger than life, even bigger than the towering Big Ben, foreigners and locals alike are getting anxious. By March next year, Britain would no longer be part of the EU.

Filipinos in London

I wonder what will happen to Filipinos here. And there are plenty – some 200,000, according to government statistics.

I’ve met a number of them the first time. Long before I stepped out of Heathrow Airport, I already met a lot of Filipinos working at the world’s second busiest gateway. They’re either cashiers, cleaners, receptionists and they were all around the bustling airport.

And when my classes started, I met more Filipinos. One worked in the cafeteria of the dorm where I stayed, while another one was a bartender in a pub. Thrilled to see a fellow Filipino, he gave me a free glass of beer while my classmates and I played billiards. He had long jet-black hair in dreadlocks. Another was a commuter I met at the famed London Underground.

And then there’s Vince, a total stranger I met at the end of my stay here.

Vince is a registered nurse who had been in London for two years already when I met him.

One afternoon, on my last day in the city, he showed me around London’s nooks and crannies. I asked him what brought him here.  He said the salary of a nurse in Manila was so small compared to what he could earn outside the country.

But I felt his sadness when he talked about the fact that he had to leave his parents who are already old and that he had to struggle to work abroad, far away from home.  He said he gets really hurt when he goes home to the Philippines and gets lousy treatment from airport authorities and government officials.

It’s not an easy life, I remember him saying again and again as we shared stories over afternoon tea.

I wonder now what happened to him. And I wonder what would happen to him when Britain finally leaves the EU next year.

Like Vince, there are many other Filipinos here whose fates are uncertain. The risks are real.

A former consul general in London, Mario Lopez de Leon Jr. said the impact may be mixed.

“The immediate impact would be the depreciation of the pound sterling vis-a-vis the major currencies of the world. That would translate to more pounds to be sent by our OFWs to their families to maintain the amount of pesos they regularly remit,” he said in a commentary on The FilAm, a magazine for Filipino Americans in New York.

But he said the Filipino migrants’ access to social services such as health, housing and school might ease as EU nationals may no longer enjoy priority over other nationalities, including Filipinos.

Indeed, what happens to Filipinos in London remains to be seen. I hope their migrants’ status would not be affected and their lives would not be restricted.

But it can happen because one of the reasons the “Leave” vote won is that the British people want to see a reduction in immigration.

I haven’t seen a lot of Filipinos now, but I am sure they’re all over the city. I hope Brexit won’t take away their dreams.

Dreams

Every overseas Filipino worker holds a dream to have a better life not only for themselves, but also for their loved ones.

And whether it’s in the Land of Milk and Honey, in the scorching deserts of the Middle East, or in the Land of Dolce Vita, they chase their dreams endlessly.

Filipinos here in London are no exception.

I fervently hope their dreams stay with them; not frozen in the biting coldness of winter.

And I hope that someday, here in the Land of Hope and Glory, they see their dreams come to life, as perfect and colorful as the lush flowers of spring.

Iris Gonzales’ e-mail address is [email protected].