Mayday

On Labor Day, our overseas workers were shouting “mayday,” seeking deliverance not only from abusive employers, but also from Philippine officials who are lurching from one embarrassing incident to the next.  

President Duterte needs a seasoned diplomat as adviser to prevent a repeat of the country’s embarrassment in Kuwait. Duterte likes to brag that he’s just a probinsiyano who can no longer change his ways and be forced to learn the intricacies of diplomacy. So he must put someone in charge of his foreign policy who won’t use the position for political posturing, who can do damage control without making him lose face even when he does his worst on the global stage. It must be someone who at the very least can show him where Benham Rise and Mischief Reef are located.

Duterte needs a professional, because any amateurish moves can have an adverse impact on over 10 million of his compatriots working overseas.

After the gruesome murder of Filipina maid Joanna Demafelis and reports of other overseas Filipino workers committing suicide because of abuses suffered in Kuwait, we were bargaining for better treatment of OFWs from a position of strength.

Now, overnight, thanks to officials who seem to have watched too many telenovelas, that position of strength has been reversed, with Kuwait becoming the aggrieved party.

Worse, our officials can’t even get their act together – including, sadly, the motormouth President of the republic. Is the deployment ban permanent, as any video or audio recording of the President’s speech would show, or temporary as his labor secretary insisted a day later? As of yesterday, the word was that Duterte was aiming for a “soft landing” in dealing with Kuwait.

The Kuwaitis must be scratching their heads in puzzlement – or doubled up with laughter.

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The ways of diplomacy can be strange to ordinary folks. But even such folks can tell that our side must have done something wrong while ostensibly trying to do good, because our government publicly apologized to Kuwait.

And while we protested over the arrest of the persons seen in the OFW rescue video uploaded online with the words “courtesy of the DFA” as well as Kuwait’s expulsion of Philippine Ambassador Renato Villa, the Department of Foreign Affairs is also reportedly sending a replacement for him ASAP.

You record a supposedly covert operation like that and then release it to the world because you think it will make your office or the boss look good. Since Villa is no politician, suspicion has inevitably focused on the non-diplomat in the DFA, Secretary Alan Peter Cayetano, as the intended beneficiary of the made-for-primetime-news recorded rescue.

Critics suspect that Cayetano is hoping to succeed President Duterte. As a senator, Cayetano did better than several of his colleagues. As DFA chief, his defense before international gatherings of Duterte’s anti-crime and human rights stance appears to be satisfactory to the President.  

But if he’s really aiming for the presidency, I don’t know how Cayetano hopes to get past Davao City Mayor Sara, who this early looks like Duterte’s preferred successor, or past stalwarts of the ruling PDP-Laban in Congress.

In the selection process, Cayetano’s potential rivals will surely point out how he fared in the 2016 race for vice president, in which he placed a far third behind Leni Robredo and Bongbong Marcos.

Cayetano has a good chance of returning to the Senate. Did he need that rescue video for his campaign? Stories leaked from the DFA pin the blame on the video fiasco on his appointee, an undersecretary who is not a career diplomat and who reportedly flunked the tough foreign service exam.

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Our officials should balance the needs of abused OFWs with those who are generally satisfied with their work environment and whose jobs could be jeopardized by what critics have described as amateur hour in the DFA.

The government must be embarrassed that only a handful of the 250,000 Filipinos in Kuwait have heeded Duterte’s call to come home.

Creating meaningful jobs for most of our citizens is still the best strategy for protecting our workforce, and should be the long-term goal of any administration.

Migrant workers are always vulnerable to abuse and second-class treatment. The OFW phenomenon, which contributes significantly to the Philippines’ economic strength, also has steep social costs.

The government is dangling the Build Build Build infrastructure program as an enticement for OFWs to leave Kuwait. Obviously, a key consideration will be the pay, which drove the OFWs to work in the oil-rich Gulf state. Also, Build Build Build cannot absorb the domestic helpers, who account for more than half of the Filipinos in Kuwait.

The maids, according to our Beijing-loving government, can find work as English teachers in China. For this work, you need two major language skills: English proficiency and at least rudimentary Mandarin. How many persons with those skills would work as maids in Kuwait? I’m a half-baked Tsinoy and I haven’t gone past “thank you” and “hello” in Mandarin. China also puts a premium on education and skills training, and there is no lack of native English speakers competing for language teaching jobs in the world’s second largest economy.

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This crisis has once again exposed the vulnerabilities of our country. It should show to our political leadership the importance of playing by international rules and maintaining good relations with the world.

It was interesting to hear Duterte saying he would stop picking a fight with United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid bin Ra’ad Al Hussein, who has openly criticized the Philippine campaign against illegal drugs. The UN official, a career diplomat who played a key role in the creation of the International Criminal Court, happens to be a prince of Jordan. The kingdom is donating 2 Bell AH-1F Cobra attack helicopters to the Philippine Air Force (PAF), so Duterte said his lips are now sealed when it comes to Prince Zeid.

Will Duterte also give the European Union a respite from his cussing if there’s a Rafale fighter jet or Eurofighter Typhoon for the PAF? (Incidentally, Kuwait has Eurofighters.)

Or maybe the presence of 250,000 OFWs in EU member Italy and another 250,000 in (soon-to-exit-EU) Britain, plus several thousands more scattered across Western Europe and on EU-registered commercial ships, may encourage Duterte to be more circumspect in his speeches.

If he has a Pavlovian urge to bark at foreign governments over every slight, he should recruit a pro who can handle damage control on the diplomatic front. If only for the sake of our overseas workers.