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Now, here’s another anecdote. The Filipino Community Services and
Information Network (Filcomsin), a Hong Kong-based alliance of non-
government organisations founded and advised by another UP alumna, has
been trying for almost a year now to launch a regular newsletter run by its own
members, who are all domestic helpers here.
The reason it has failed so far is not for lack of trying. The problem has been
that every time Filcomsin’s officers have chosen one of their peers to act as
the newsletter’s manager, that editor-designate invariably – if not inevitably –
leaves Hong Kong for some other overseas job that demands more skills and
rewards them with much more moolah.
These two episodes may seem unrelated, but they actually point to the same
thing: the rapidly changing complexion of the Filipino expatriate communities
all over the world, and that includes Hong Kong.
From a menial, labour-intensive workforce to more and more professionals
and highly mobile talent, the Filipino labour pool is undergoing a 21st-century
sea-change into something very rich but not at all that strange.
That shift is quite familiar, for it has happened or is happening in other parts
of the world – India, Ireland, China, and even Vietnam, just to name a few of
the countries where growing ranks of professionals and highly-skilled
workers going out or coming home are changing the domestic economies.
In Hong Kong’s case, market forces that are unhampered by bureaucracy and
uncorrupted by state-dictated central planning have been slowly but surely
pushing the Filipina domestic helper to the next higher level of economic
opportunities, such as nursing or hotel jobs.
Sadly, the Philippine government’s latest package of reformist policies on
domestic helpers, which we explain and expound upon in this issue’s Special
Report, may end up tripping the Filipina maids.
In the process, despite its avowed good intentions, the government may be
unwittingly institutionalising servitude.
We try to measure our words when we talk about domestic helpers, as most
of us subconsciously follow the dictum of political correctness.
Under the government’s so-called Supermaid program, domestic helpers, or
DH, are now “household service workers” – HSWs, if you will.
Of course, there was a time in the not-so-distant past when the term “DH”
itself was actually the label of choice in lieu of “maids”. And before that, before
all this political correctness, we had tsimay. Could it be that behind all this
Orwellian gloss is the unspoken collective shame of a proud race?
Surely, shame is not the reason behind the government’s reform policies on
the deployment of domestic helpers.
After all, the objective of protecting workers’ rights is a worthy one.
Unfortunately, perhaps due to the confusion over the implementation of the
policies, or the shrillness of the protestations that have so far greeted them,
the program’s focus now appears so off the mark that it is not just laughable –
it’s outrageously tragic.
Instead of fixing people’s attention on the long-term goal of protecting the well-
being of the Filipina domestic helpers abroad, the debate is bogged down
over the complex training, testing and assessment programs and seminars
for HSW job applicants.
Most critics have zeroed in on the way the prospective maids will be
processed like some piece of poultry for overseas consumption – at their own
expense.
The argument is that the government has become dangerously dependent on
the dollar remittances of the OFWs that it is now exporting cheap labour
wholesale.
Indeed, if one of the government’s main aims is to ramp up the export of
maids, drivers, cleaners and other menial workers, why not start from the
primary school years?
Why not institutionalise a vocational course on domestic work? Why not offer a
college or university degree on servitude and call it BSHSW – Bachelor of
Science in Household Service Work?
Perhaps top universities such as UP can offer such a course, thereby
boosting the ranks of its alumni associations abroad.
Shallow cynicism aside, it is probably time for the government to
communicate its message properly. What has happened so far is a failure of
imagination and a total disregard for the intelligence of the “masa’’. The
HSWs deserve better than that.
Information Network (Filcomsin), a Hong Kong-based alliance of non-
government organisations founded and advised by another UP alumna, has
been trying for almost a year now to launch a regular newsletter run by its own
members, who are all domestic helpers here.
The reason it has failed so far is not for lack of trying. The problem has been
that every time Filcomsin’s officers have chosen one of their peers to act as
the newsletter’s manager, that editor-designate invariably – if not inevitably –
leaves Hong Kong for some other overseas job that demands more skills and
rewards them with much more moolah.
These two episodes may seem unrelated, but they actually point to the same
thing: the rapidly changing complexion of the Filipino expatriate communities
all over the world, and that includes Hong Kong.
From a menial, labour-intensive workforce to more and more professionals
and highly mobile talent, the Filipino labour pool is undergoing a 21st-century
sea-change into something very rich but not at all that strange.
That shift is quite familiar, for it has happened or is happening in other parts
of the world – India, Ireland, China, and even Vietnam, just to name a few of
the countries where growing ranks of professionals and highly-skilled
workers going out or coming home are changing the domestic economies.
In Hong Kong’s case, market forces that are unhampered by bureaucracy and
uncorrupted by state-dictated central planning have been slowly but surely
pushing the Filipina domestic helper to the next higher level of economic
opportunities, such as nursing or hotel jobs.
Sadly, the Philippine government’s latest package of reformist policies on
domestic helpers, which we explain and expound upon in this issue’s Special
Report, may end up tripping the Filipina maids.
In the process, despite its avowed good intentions, the government may be
unwittingly institutionalising servitude.
We try to measure our words when we talk about domestic helpers, as most
of us subconsciously follow the dictum of political correctness.
Under the government’s so-called Supermaid program, domestic helpers, or
DH, are now “household service workers” – HSWs, if you will.
Of course, there was a time in the not-so-distant past when the term “DH”
itself was actually the label of choice in lieu of “maids”. And before that, before
all this political correctness, we had tsimay. Could it be that behind all this
Orwellian gloss is the unspoken collective shame of a proud race?
Surely, shame is not the reason behind the government’s reform policies on
the deployment of domestic helpers.
After all, the objective of protecting workers’ rights is a worthy one.
Unfortunately, perhaps due to the confusion over the implementation of the
policies, or the shrillness of the protestations that have so far greeted them,
the program’s focus now appears so off the mark that it is not just laughable –
it’s outrageously tragic.
Instead of fixing people’s attention on the long-term goal of protecting the well-
being of the Filipina domestic helpers abroad, the debate is bogged down
over the complex training, testing and assessment programs and seminars
for HSW job applicants.
Most critics have zeroed in on the way the prospective maids will be
processed like some piece of poultry for overseas consumption – at their own
expense.
The argument is that the government has become dangerously dependent on
the dollar remittances of the OFWs that it is now exporting cheap labour
wholesale.
Indeed, if one of the government’s main aims is to ramp up the export of
maids, drivers, cleaners and other menial workers, why not start from the
primary school years?
Why not institutionalise a vocational course on domestic work? Why not offer a
college or university degree on servitude and call it BSHSW – Bachelor of
Science in Household Service Work?
Perhaps top universities such as UP can offer such a course, thereby
boosting the ranks of its alumni associations abroad.
Shallow cynicism aside, it is probably time for the government to
communicate its message properly. What has happened so far is a failure of
imagination and a total disregard for the intelligence of the “masa’’. The
HSWs deserve better than that.
The Filipino
labour pool is
undergoing a
21st-century
sea-change into
something very
rich but not at
all that strange
labour pool is
undergoing a
21st-century
sea-change into
something very
rich but not at
all that strange
All change as OFWs reinvent themselves
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First Word
HONG KONG
Barely more than two years ago, about three to five inspired people from
various walks of life got together and agreed to form a Hong Kong chapter of
the University of the Philippines Alumni Association.
Nothing much in there, except that the group has since grown to a 60-strong
grandly loquacious lot, including yours truly.
Barely more than two years ago, about three to five inspired people from
various walks of life got together and agreed to form a Hong Kong chapter of
the University of the Philippines Alumni Association.
Nothing much in there, except that the group has since grown to a 60-strong
grandly loquacious lot, including yours truly.
That’s nothing much, some of you
(especially those from other Philippine
universities) may say, except that such an
alumni chapter wouldn’t have grown at
such speed in Hong Kong a decade or so
ago.
The same is true for Singapore, Sydney,
Wellington or whichever overseas posting
where you’ll find a surge in the number of
Filipino professionals or entrepreneurs in
the past few years alone.
(especially those from other Philippine
universities) may say, except that such an
alumni chapter wouldn’t have grown at
such speed in Hong Kong a decade or so
ago.
The same is true for Singapore, Sydney,
Wellington or whichever overseas posting
where you’ll find a surge in the number of
Filipino professionals or entrepreneurs in
the past few years alone.