Refugee day

Filipinos have coined a word on how to elude immigration officials in other countries – tago ng tago. It means hide and hide. This is both a joke and a serious matter. I was even told that a Filipino had written a book “One thousand and One ways” to elude immigration. One methods is to climb mountains separating countries. I never saw a copy of the book but I can believe it. Filipinos who were working in Greece when the war broke out told me they walked and took lifts in cargo trucks to get to Paris.

Filipinos are everywhere in the world because they would go anywhere away from home. Most of the time, it comes from economic needs especially the women but it is also a sense of adventure. Having lived in London for many years as an exile. I was aware of the many ways Filipinos come to Europe, legally or illegally. But when the host population begin to appreciate their skills and cleanliness, in time, they are legalized. As I told a friend, if Filipinos around the world would call a strike there would be no hospitals, hotels and restaurants, airlines, ships, even secretaries for the UN and household help for working mothers, it would be a catastrophe. Some complain about the cost of hiring household help without  mentioning that the employers are able to earn two incomes for the price of one (and to add, lower). Indeed there are Filipinos working in airports as technicians, sweeper, and others who man the duty free shops. Is true that Filipinos are globalists, they are everywhere in the world in both menial and skilled work.

In that sense Filipinos abroad are migrants, not refugees. Refugees want to stay home but they are being driven away by war, famine and other natural catastrophes.

My daughter, Veronica of Al Jazeera has devoted much of her time to the cause of the Rohingyans. A stranded Rohingya escaping in boats say “we were dying on board.”

Passengers aboard crowded ship say traffickers and captain abandoned them without food or water, and left them to die. When we were both invited to the London party by the newly married Amal and George Clooney, she left our table of diplomats to approach George on the fate of Rohingyans. He graciously pecked her on the cheek but never heard from him or his wife again.

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The Rohingyas are of Muslim origin and they are fighting to live on the fringes of Myanmar unrecognized and neglected while embattled with the Rachine Buddhists.

“A boat filled with around 380 men, women and children from Western Myanmar and Bangladesh was found off the coast of Sathun Province, Thailand, last week. Those on board say

Another migrant told Al Jazeera she boarded the boat because she had nowhere else to go.

“I don't have a home or anything left," she says. "The Rakhine killed my mother and my relatives. The people in the village said they were going to Malaysia, so I made the decision to follow them,” Al Jazeera's Veronica Pedrosa reports.

She posted  a frame around her profile picture of refugees on the run and asked others to do the same so there would be more awareness of refugees and what happens to them when escaping war and economic deprivation. I saw at least one who took the heed and guess who it was – me. Although Filipinos go all over the world as economic refugees they are not aware of what being a desperate refugee means. They are not aware of refugees from war and their sufferings.

According to the Rohingyas and some scholars, they are indigenous to Rakhine State, while other historians claim that the group represents a mixture of precolonial and colonial immigrations. The official stance of the Myanmar government, however, has been that the Rohingyas are mainly illegal immigrants who migrated into Arakan following Burmese independence in 1948 or after the Bangladesh liberation war in 1971.

They are not just away from home, they are deprived of home or of belonging to any country.

The Philippine Department of Foreign Affairs has offered to be a temporary destination for Syrian refugees until the can be accepted in other countries for permanent settlement. Refugees await acceptance from a host country for resettlement. 

“The Philippines is ready to take in Syrian refugees in response to the humanitarian crisis in Europe, the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) said.

But the generous offer lost its luster when it also added that the Philippines would have to assess its ability to take them in before it makes the decision.         

“While we will abide by our commitments as a signatory to the UN Convention on refugees, we should also take into account our own resources and capabilities, considering we are still in the rehabilitation stage from the aftermath of Typhoon Yolanda,” Jose said. I find that an unacceptable reasoning. We are talking about victims of war not of their own making.

The United Nations refugee agency made a plea to the European Union (EU) to accept up to 200,000 asylum-seekers. These are victims, not combatants.

Hundreds of thousands of people are risking their lives to cross the Mediterranean Sea into Europe.

It is the largest influx of refugees into Europe for decades and “requires a “massive common effort” and a break from the current fragmented approach. Why not accept them as citizens of their own homeland.

In June, the Philippines expressed willingness to share with ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) member-states, the effort to take in who would take in Bangladeshi and ethnic Rohingya migrants.

This was the subject of talks in an ASEAN meeting in Bangkok. The Philippines would cooperate in the regional effort. It should also convince Myanmar to look into a problem in their own backyard.

After all, in a sense many Filipinos are migrants or refugees in the countries where they are living as tago ng tago.