Steep price

During the 2010 campaign, several presidential candidates including Noynoy Aquino said among their long-term goals was to bring home many of the 10 million Filipinos who found it necessary to find jobs overseas.

We heard the same objective from some of the contenders for the presidency in 2016.

But remittances from overseas Filipino workers continue to account for a hefty chunk of economic growth figures. The remittances have fueled booms particularly in retail, real estate and vehicle sales. OFW earnings powered the phenomenal growth of shopping malls.

As soon as an OFW receives a paycheck, the money is sent back home to relatives who buy smartphones, tablets, household appliances. When more money is received, it is spent on a motorcycle. Sometimes it is invested in a tricycle or, with more funds, in a multicab, jeepney or taxi AUV for generating additional income.

Neither the government, which needs to tout rosy economic growth figures, nor the country’s workforce is ready to give up any time soon the benefits of employment overseas.

So Filipinos have continued to leave, lured by higher pay elsewhere for the same work they render in their own country.

I hesitate to call it “decent work” because their treatment and workplace environment abroad could be anything but decent, and could even be downright dangerous because of armed conflict. There is no argument, however, that the pay is higher (especially in conflict zones) than many can ever hope to receive for the same kind of work in our country.

So everyone leaves: drivers, graphic artists, manicurists, electricians, masons, teachers, IT experts, health professionals, dairy farmers, weather forecasters, air traffic controllers, and even the folks who operate the airport passenger tubes. And of course a large number of OFWs are household helpers.

We know the pluses of the OFW phenomenon, which started during the Marcos regime when the Middle East was undertaking massive infrastructure development fueled by oil money and couldn’t locally source enough contractors and skilled workers. Life can be easy although boring and lacking challenges for the lucky workers. I know a nursing aide whose work is to keep watch over a large summer home in Tunisia owned and rarely visited by an Eastern European. She has saved enough to buy her relatives a modest house and lot south of Metro Manila. There are many such stories of life improving thanks to OFW remittances.

But we are also aware of the minuses of losing a tenth of a nation’s skilled workers, with no immediate replacements available, and having people leave their families to work abroad for a long time.

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Pope Francis raised the problem when he visited the Philippines in January 2015. The migrant worker phenomenon, he lamented, tore families apart.

Long separations of couples can become permanent; I have seen this in many cases, with the children naturally suffering from the breakup. Broken families can leave emotional scars for life.

Separation at least is more bearable than having the betrayed spouse commit suicide. The stories can be devastating. The neighbor of one of my friends drank insecticide because she could not bear the infidelity of her OFW husband. As the poison took effect, she changed her mind about dying and told her young daughter to rush her to a hospital, but it was too late. That daughter will be traumatized forever.

In recent days a new issue has been raising the hackles of President Duterte, in addition to drugs, corruption, human rights advocates, certain media organizations, Joma Sison and Barack Obama. This is the maltreatment of OFWs in Kuwait, including abuses that have reportedly driven seven victims to commit suicide.

The Philippine government is still verifying the causes of the deaths, although the initial reports indicate that several of the victims, all of them household helpers, were raped.

We are poor and those jobs are needed by our OFWs, Duterte said the other day, addressing Kuwaitis, as he appealed for humane treatment of Filipinos. Of course the appeal drew scorn from critics of his ruthless war against illegal drugs, but perhaps Kuwaitis – and other employers of OFWs, for that matter – will get Duterte’s message.

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Such appeals are best accompanied by greater effort to create meaningful employment and livelihood opportunities in the Philippines.

The government can also assist OFWs in the wise use of their savings. Reforms are needed to make it easier to do business not only for the major investors who can provide those meaningful jobs, but also for OFWs who want to venture into micro entrepreneurship.

The current processes and requirements for starting and operating even a micro enterprise in this country are daunting. There’s inefficiency, red tape and demands for grease money when doing business not only in government but even in privately owned commercial establishments. An OFW could end up losing all her savings if she ventures into entrepreneurship.

Business process outsourcing at least has created thousands of local jobs with compensation that is competitive with those offered in other countries.

But the government must assist the workforce in skills upgrading because experts are warning that voice BPO is a shrinking sector, with demand mainly for knowledge-based BPO seen to survive.

Other areas that can generate jobs even in remote sites are tourism and agriculture. President Duterte can consider the success of Thailand in providing livelihood in these sectors.

At this point the Philippine economy cannot afford to lose the billions remitted annually by OFWs. But a country that relies heavily on the export of its human resources will have a steep price to pay.