Migrant nation

By Rina Jimenez-David
Columnist, Inquirer
Posted date: December 12, 2007

We have much to be grateful for, of course, to the Emir of Kuwait and to President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo for saving the life of Marilou Ranario. The Emir, Sheikh Sabah Al Ahmed Al Sabah, for commuting Ranario’s death sentence to life imprisonment, and the President for going out of her way and putting the prestige of her office on the line by meeting with him and personally appealing on the Filipino domestic worker’s behalf.

But it is still only a partial victory, and considering the resources put into the campaign to save Ranario, a most costly one, the full value of which we might still be paying for many years from now.

While Ranario has been saved from execution, she still faces life imprisonment, even if the Emir has promised that once her employer’s family accepts Ranario’s apology and the “blood money,” he could cut her jail term further. But Ranario will not be coming home for some time yet, and to secure her freedom, our government has put the full weight of its prestige and reputation, not to mention its diplomatic leverage, on the line.

The same report that carried news of the Emir’s commutation said overseas workers now contribute $12.8 billion annually in remittances, about 10 percent of gross domestic product. Some even maintain that it’s the money that overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) send home that keeps the economy from teetering over the edge.

OFWs are both the country’s strength and its vulnerability. While they keep our economy afloat, and lift their families here from the trap of poverty, they have also shaped our foreign policy and made it vulnerable to the laws and policies of “host” countries. In many cases, as in Ranario’s, our leaders have also become beholden to their officials, subject to the benevolence of rulers like the Emir of Kuwait or criminals, like the Iraqi militants who kidnapped Angelo de la Cruz.

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This is not the first time that the Philippines, either through the government itself or private donors, has paid “blood money” to the families of individuals who died at the hands of an overseas Filipino worker.

The first case I remember is that of Sarah Balabagan who was convicted of stabbing her male employer (she claimed she did so in self-defense during an attempted rape) and was “ransomed” from her prison through a prominent businessman’s donation. Upon her release and repatriation, she was brought around the country, achieving the status of a folk heroine. A movie was even made about her plight, though its commercial release was delayed because of political and diplomatic considerations. Sarah even made a stab at show business herself.

Government officials and even business leaders scrambled to save Sarah mainly because they had learned from the painful execution of Flor Contemplacion, who was hanged in Singapore on charges of killing her ward, despite the representations of the Philippine government and even the emergence of a witness who told a contradictory story. Contemplacion’s death seemed to touch a nerve here, leading to widespread protests and the dismissal of some officials.

And yet responses to such crises like that of Flor Contemplacion, Sarah Balabagan and now Marilou Ranario take on something of an ad hoc nature. True, it is difficult to predict the way people subject to such tremendous loneliness, isolation and dislocation as our overseas workers would react to stresses. And thus it would be difficult to prepare sufficiently for every exigency. But should every crisis be resolved only through direct intercession of the President?

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An article in the Los Angeles Times describes current Philippine policy on overseas labor as a “vicious migration trap,” with some 11 million Filipinos overseas enduring “a life of lonely, risky sacrifice.” And yet, even if remittances keep the economy afloat, most observers concede that the policy of encouraging labor exports has not led to prosperity, despite more than 30 years’ and two generations’ experience.

The same article concludes that indeed labor export has become a “formula for stagnation,” with government growing increasingly dependent on earnings from abroad while failing to make the necessary investments in education, health and job generation.

A recent study has found that government’s neglect and spendthrift ways are mirrored by the families left behind by OFWs. Most of the money sent home, it was found, has gone to buy consumer goods, instead of being funneled into productive investments, including education.

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Fortunately, there was another OFW story recently that shows how OFWs and the families they leave behind can maintain the ties that bind them and help society in the process.

For every child or spouse feeling resentment at being sacrificed on the altar of prosperity, there is an OFW suffering from intense loneliness and perhaps resentment, too, at being seen as merely a meal ticket and supplier of imported goods.

To this, says Corazon Atuel whose husband Eugenio works as a ship captain, the antidote is frequent communication and treating each other and their seven children as “friends.” The Atuels join two other families recognized as “Model OFW Family of the Year,” a belated nod to the role that the family plays in the success of an overseas worker.

Perhaps we can extend the model of the Atuels and other families to the nation as a whole and to our migrant population. We need to keep our OFWs within the bosom of national concerns, view them as an essential part of national life and stop treating them merely as sources of remittances. As family members and as a nation, we must send our loved ones abroad and invest their earnings wisely so that in the future there may no longer be any need for them to leave.