Lola Grande!

Every day, 3,000 Filipinos leave this country. Most of them are migrant workers. Of the 3,000, 70 percent are women. There are eight million Filipino migrant workers abroad. 5,600,000 of them are women.

They have gone abroad so that they can help their families in the Philippines. In the year 2007 alone, they contributed $14.45 billion to our country’s economy. Their children are usually left in the care of their grandmothers.

The migrant women are at the mercy of the recruiting agencies. Some pay large sums, and then are not sent abroad. Those who are given jobs are sent to strange countries about which they know nothing, to do work that is unfamiliar to them, and to employers who are often abusive.

Some find it hard to collect their salaries. Some are overworked, underfed, and forced to live in conditions that are sub-human. Some are beaten. And some are raped. They do not know what rights they have. They do not know how to protect themselves.

They send their money home. The family spends it. So when the migrant worker returns, she has no savings, no security for the future. She joins the great army of destitute Filipinos.

“Lola Grande” is an organization whose chief objective is to help these migrant women, and their children. . . . to stop the crooked recruiting agencies. . .to prepare the women before they migrate. . . . to watch over  them,  when they are working in foreign nations. . .to make sure that the money they send home is not wasted, so that the migrant worker has some security when she returns. It is non-stock, non-profit, non-government, designed entirely for social service.

The original “Lola Grande” was Cornelia Lau Chang Co, born in the Chinese area of Binondo, in old Manila, in 1820. She married Tomas Ly Chau Co, who came to the Philippines with the last wave of Chinese immigrants in the 19th century.

Tomas died. Doña Cornelia had to provide for her family of five children, alone. She started a business, making grass mats—tampipis—and other products of palm frond—buri.  She supplied these to small retailers.

She was methodical, hard-working, efficient, excellent in mathematics. She began transporting unhusked rice, from the producing provinces in Central Luzon to Manila. She became a licensed transporter of rice — a consignado — the fifth ranking consignado of rice from Pangasinan to Manila.

Gradually she was able to acquire rice lands in Pangasinan. She bought and sold raw sugar. She started a faraderia, a simple process of producing raw sugar crystals. She sold these, in quantity, to British and American export companies. She built houses in Metro Manila, in Santa Ana. She established an orphan asylum — the Asilo de Huerfanos — for the children of those who died in the great cholera epidemics of 1882 and 1889. A tiny little woman, she was far ahead of her time.

The present Executive Director of  the “Lola Grande Foundation for Women and Children, Inc” is Sylvia Lichauco de Leon, the great-great-granddaughter of Cornelia Lau Chong Co.  It is beautifully organized, with a clear vision and mission; clean-cut, definite objectives;  and eight precise Areas of Interest.

They have organized an “International Conference on Gender Migration and Development: Seizing Opportunities, Upholding Rights”, to be held in the Philippines on September 25 and 26, at the Sofitel Philippine Plaza, Manila. 300 international delegates will attend this conference. The results will have a deep impact on the “Global Forum on Migration and Development’, to be held in Manila in October.

Personally, I am touched by the name of the organization: “Lola Grande” — big hearted grandmother. Because in this country we have so many big hearted grandmothers taking care of their grandchildren whose parents are among our eight million migrant workers. And I know how much these women love the little ones in their care.

I meet regularly with my ancient medieval Original Ateneo Glee Club, who have been singing with me for the last 50 years — all of them grandfathers. Periodically each one disappears for some time, travelling great distances to be with their grandchildren for some special occasion. Their grandchildren mean so much to them!

To me, the crusher came with my sister Rita. She went into a depression when her husband dropped dead with a heart attack, directly in front of her, at a distance of 12 inches. She has four children, but no grandchildren. She is ten years younger than I am. But last year she said, quietly: “I have no grandchildren. . . . I have nothing left to live for. . . . I want to go home to God.” . . . and then she died!

I realized then that grandchildren are not only little ones to love, and beautiful sources of love, which they pour out on their grandparents . . . they are reasons for living!

So “Lola Grande” appeals to me. It is facing one of the real problems of our country, and coming to grips with it in a realistic way. Anyone interested in learning more about it can visit the Foundation website at www.lolagrande.com. Volunteers, or those wishing to apply for membership, can call Sylvia Lichauco de Leon at landlines 8935671 or 8939684 or celphone 0917-8555652.  Or e-mail [email protected].  There is no cost, no dues.