Engaging the migrant-worker rainbow

Writing about overseas Filipino workers is very personal to me. I have been a migrant myself—twice in fact, first as a caregiver and printing press worker in Udine, Italy in the early 1980s, and later, from 1998-2006, when I worked in Washington DC as a senior manager and policy expert in an environmental think tank. As an international lawyer traveling extensively, I have been exposed to many Filipino diaspora communities, from United Nations professionals in New York, Bonn, and Geneva to development professionals and domestic workers in Rome, Singapore, Hong Kong and Washington DC. I have broken bread, drank wine, and ate rice (of course) with many migrants, and I owe them a debt of gratitude for helping me find home everywhere.

In the past month alone, I had wonderful experiences going around San Francisco, New York, Fairfield and Portland, all cities in the USA, where I spent quality time with migrants – including classmates from Xavier University, former Ateneo and University of the Philippines students and colleagues, nieces and other relatives, and friends from my Yale University days. The conversations I had with them reminded me how important it was to engage what I call the “OFW Rainbow”—the diverse groups of Filipinos who have staked their fortunes—their work and/or homes—in foreign lands. The recent appointment of Imelda Nicolas, for whom I have high respect, as the new chairman of the Commission on Filipinos Overseas has also reminded me of the importance such engagement.

The successive waves of Filipino migration started at the turn of the 20th century. Filipino workers were recruited in Hawaii in the 1920s to work in pineapple plantations, and many of them eventually ended up in Mainland USA. Earlier, of course, in the 19th century, there was a pioneering group of Filipino expatriates, including our national hero Jose Rizal. Rizal’s whose words on the day he left the Philippines on the steamship Salvadora are still repeated by the thousands of migrants who leave the country every day: “The time of our separation has arrived. I was speechless. I hugged them twice, not wanting to let go… Well, I am a man and yet, I weep. I weep as I left my country, where all of my affection resides… My country! My people! Now, I leave you.” (Translation by Emanuel La Viña).

The 1950s and 1960s saw the first wave of Filipino medical professionals migrate to North America and some European countries, a cyclical phenomenon that continues to this day, with the 1990s seeing an additional mix of professionals and highly-skilled workers such as those in education, information technology and similar fields. It was however during the construction boom of the 60s and the 70s in the Middle East and the influx of domestic workers in Europe, Hong Kong and Singapore in the 1980s and the 1990s when our OFW population exponentially grew into the millions. Today, migrant workers are estimated to have reached 10 percent of the country’s total population.

The phenomenon has had a deep impact on the economic and social life of the nation. According to the government, our gross international reserves reached a new historic high of $56.8 billion last month, up from the $53.8 billion recorded in September. The importance of these remittances to our country is illustrated by the fact that even as the global economic recession has not yet totally subsided, our economy is relatively stable.

There is of course the ugly side of the diaspora: human trafficking, legal problems, cruel physical and emotional treatment by foreign employers, and underpaid and overworked OFWs. In the domestic front, migration by one or both parents or on or both spouses have sometimes resulted in dysfunctional transnational families, with the children of migrants bearing the brunt of prolonged separation. A recent study conducted by the Ateneo de Manila on migrants’ families in the province of Batangas, however, have found out that, overall, families are resilient, find ways to cope, and even thrive amidst the challenges.

How then should we engage with our “OFW Rainbow”? What do we owe them? What should we expect of them?

The most important thing we can do for most migrants is to have a clear vision of why we are sending our people to different lands in the numbers we are doing. Is it because of the lack of jobs at home? If this is the principal reason why the diaspora is being encouraged, then some rethinking needs to be done as this is a bankrupt approach, leading to many tragedies. Certainly, if we are sending people away because we benefit economically, our strategy must have at its core unconditional support for migrants and their families. This includes legal and political assistance when they are caught in the line of fire—for example in criminal prosecution or in violent conflicts.

Innovative reentry and similar support programs must be established to sustain economic gains of migrant families. In this regard, the Ateneo School of Government has been working with the Philippine Embassy to Italy, the Associazione Pilipinas-OFSPES, the POLO, OWWA and OFSPES Philippines, Inc. to implement a Leadership and Social Entrepreneurship Training Program for Overseas Filipinos. So far, we have trained 213 OFW students in Rome, Naples, and Milan, with 104 already successfully finishing the program. I will be in Naples at the end of the month for the LSE graduation there where the students will present business plans for their social or business enterprises. We hope to start a similar program in Singapore soon.

The country’s strategy for migrants should also have the goal of making the country benefit from the one of the biggest diasporas in the world. Benefiting from our migrants should not just be about getting their money, important as it has become to families and our economy. Tapping their knowledge and connections and deploying these to solve national problems potentially have a bigger impact. My recent trips to the United States have been instructive on how this could be done. My friend Erwin Tan, who is an architect and a UP graduate and has lived in San Francisco, had many ideas on urban redevelopment, a clear need of many of our cities. In New York, I met with Benjamin de la Peña who, as a program officer of the Rockefeller Foundation, is catalyzing and supporting incredibly innovative work in cities in different parts of the world. And in Portland, Oregon, I was impressed by the commitment of the Filipinos for Good Governance of Oregon and Southwest Washington to help us have a better country. In conversations with Pia and Gary de Leon and their colleagues, I can visualize a program whereby we could tap migrants to help solve problems in the country using technologies and adapting solutions that have worked elsewhere.

It is said that people leave what is familiar to seek the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. For us, fortunately, the pot of gold is in the Rainbow Diaspora itself. –Manila Standard Today

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