New York Times article “Toiling Far From Home for Philippine Dreams” – Compelling but Missed Its Mark

On September 18, 2010, The New York Times article recently published an article “Toiling Far From Home for Philippine Dreams” [titled Many OFW dream houses in 'Little Italy' still empty, easily becoming one of the most emailed stories that weekend. The reporter, Norimitsu Onishi writes compellingly about the dreams of overseas Filipino workers and their shortcomings as they build a better life for their families left behind.

I agree on three key points that the article mentioned. However, the article didn’t mention the growing donations and community giving that many overseas Filipino workers are conducting. I lament such gross omission that the article largely missed its mark.

Three Key Points that Were Right On the Mark:

1. Philippine government unhealthy dependence on remittances and calling overseas Filipino workers “heroes”.

It’s ridiculous that the Philippine government continues to call overseas Filipino workers “heroes”. The façade of heroism hides the ugly reality, risks and dangers that many Filipino workers face as they seek employment abroad. In the end, being called “heroes” becomes another marketing ploy to continue promoting workers to leave.

2. The Philippine government has an unhealthy dependence on remittances

Migration and promoting overseas employment is not a sustainable enterprise. In fact, 30 years of sending out workers abroad has not made the Philippines prosper much (Opiniano, Diaspora Philanthropy by Filipinos, 2005). Remittances has saved the Philippines from dire economic straits and postponed the government to carry out much-needed economic and social reforms.

3. There are no jobs in the Philippines. The Philippine National Statistics Office plays a shell game with their unemployment numbers. In July 2010, they happily reported that the unemployment rate dropped to 6.9% (Manila Bulletin). However, they also included a second group, the labor force participation rate of 64.6% which I think tells the true unemployment rate of 35.4% (Philippine National Statistics Office).

One Gross Omission of the Article – failure to mention the community donations of overseas Filipinos

The New York Times article omits the growing numbers of Filipinos overseas who help their communities beyond acquiring two-story homes, flat screen TVs and private education for their children. In fact, from 1999-2003, they contributed over $218 million to community projects beyond remittances and gifts to their immediate families (Opiniano, Diaspora Philanthropy by Filipinos, 2005).

Filipino overseas workers have funded wells, provided community scholarships and organized medical missions to their hometowns, among other endeavors. Filipinos anchor their giving to the traditional values of community or ‘bayanihan’.

Immigrant Advocates Pin Hopes on Dream Act

After a summer focused on fighting off Arizona’s hard-line law SB 1070, immigrant advocates are seeking to regain momentum with an all-out push on the Dream Act.

The Dream Act—or Development, Education, and Relief for Alien Minors Act—would provide a chance at legal residency for young undocumented immigrants who graduate from high school.

Democrat Harry Reid of Nevada, the Senate majority leader, made a surprise announcement earlier this week that he would seek to bring the act to a vote as an amendment to the annual defense bill.

Sen. Bob Menendez of New Jersey, a Democrat, seemed to raise the stakes even further with an announcement the next day that he would introduce a major immigration reform bill before the midterm elections.

However, the current Congress seems too deeply divided for major legislation to get through after two years of rancorous battles over stimulus, health care, and financial regulation.

So it was Reid’s plan for the more narrowly focused Dream Act that triggered the most excitement.

Pro- and anti-immigration groups are asking supporters to call and e-mail their representatives in anticipation of a legislative showdown.

With the Dream Act winning traction and buzz over immigration being heard on Capitol Hill, immigrants and their advocates again feel like they’re in the driver’s seat, said Shuya Ohno of the National Immigration Forum, an immigrant advocacy group in Washington, D.C.

“The anti-immigrant groups are on the defensive and are lashing out,” Ohno said.

The Dream Act’s detractors characterize it as an attempt to pander to Hispanic voters with a watered-down immigration amnesty.

The act “has the potential to immediately legalize millions and also result in the admission of millions more immigrants for years to come via chain migration,” said Jon Feere, an analyst with the Center for Immigration Studies, a Washington, D.C., think tank that opposes more immigration.

Freere’s figures are exaggerated, Dream Act supporters contend.

The National Immigration Law Center estimates the number of high school students graduating each year who might qualify for the act at 65,000.

Even if the act were to include high school graduates over an extended interval—a recent version of the bill includes immigrants presently aged 12 to 35—the pool of potential Dream Act beneficiaries would number just under 1.5 million.

And since many immigrants would not apply—either because they lack interest in pursuing college, or are disqualified due to criminal records or deportation orders—the number of beneficiaries would likely be far lower.

“We’re extremely hopeful,” said Natalia Aristizabal, Dream Act organizer at Make the Road New York (MRNY), a grassroots immigrant rights group based in the borough of Queens.

A strong involvement by immigrant students and youth, particularly in the last year, helped keep the Dream Act present in legislators’ minds, she said.

“A bigger proportion of the population affected is fighting for it,” she said.

To benefit from the Dream Act, undocumented immigrant high school graduates must attend college or serve in the military.

They also need to have entered the United States at age 15 or younger and prove they’ve resided in the country for five years or more.

One young person who stands to benefit is Francisco Curiel.

The 18-year-old New York City resident came from Mexico three years ago, and is now a high school senior who also plays on a soccer team and holds down weekend food delivery jobs to help his family pay the bills.

In addition, Curiel himself has helped educate young people about the Dream Act as a youth organizer at MRNY.

The Dream Act would make it possible for him to access student loans and scholarships to attend college, loans he’s now barred from as an undocumented immigrant, Curiel said.

“I want to work, and contribute what I can to this country,” he said.

If the Dream Act does come up for a vote in the Senate—it needs to attract at least one Republican vote to do so—it would become the first major stand-alone piece of immigration policy to advance that far during the Obama administration.

However, the Dream Act has a history of failing to muster enough support at the last moment.

In 2007, the Dream Act was derailed by a narrow eight-vote margin in the U.S. Senate, despite the backing of prominent Democrats and Republicans, many of whom are still in Congress.

Again and again, the bill has attracted bipartisan support only to be stopped by a small core of Republican opponents.

This week, Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Republican leader, said Reid’s advocacy of the Dream Act was purely motivated by his desire to attract Hispanic voters in Nevada. Sen. Reid faces a strong challenge in November from a Tea Party-backed Republican opponent, Sharron Angle.

Several Republican senators joined McConnell in criticizing Reid for attaching the Dream Act to the defense bill when it has little to do with war or security issues.

Given that at least one Republican must join Democrats to gain the 60 votes needed to advance the Dream Act, it’s very possible that it will again be defeated.

“Anything is possible,” said Ohno, of the National Immigration Forum.

Source: http://newamericamedia.org/2010/09/immigrant-advocates-pin-hopes-on-dream-act.php#

Migration for work is now a permanent feature of the job market

There were emphatic and asser-tive, albeit convivial, discussions at the regional technical training on skills assessment of migrant workers held in Bangkok last week under the auspices of the International Labor Organization and sponsored by the Korean Government. The comments and recommendations were summarized by resource person David Lythe from New Zealand, ILO skills and employability specialist and Bangkok-based Sandra Roethbeck, and our own TESDA executive director for competency assessment and certification Gabby Bordado.

• There should be continuing meetings and studies by ASEAN member-countries of the proposed Returning Migrant Certification of Skills (RMCS) and its comparability or equivalency to their respective national competency or skills standards.

• The assessments and certification from specific ASEAN member-countries should be recognized based on the comparability of such respective national skills standards. This can be done initially on bilateral basis (e. g., current arrangements between Japan and Philippines under JPEPA).

• Eventually under ILO auspices, the ASEAN countries can mutually recognize the RMCS as the common basis for their respective national skills/competency standards.

• Hand in hand with these efforts the member-countries can establish and develop their respective national qualifications frameworks (NQFs) which can further facilitate the mutual recognition arrangements (MRA) within ASEAN.

• In the longer term, the ASEAN with assistance from institutions such as ILO and UNESCO can evolve their own regional qualifications framework (RQF) similar to the European Qualifications Framework (EQF) and the case of Southern African community.

• The RMCS together with competency-based assessment and certification and the efforts toward establishing NQFs should be supported, promoted and accepted as an instrument toward MRA and greater labor mobility within ASEAN. There should be continuing meetings and dialogues and agreements, either on bilateral or multilateral basis, region-wide or sub-region-wide (e. g., through groupings such as BIMP-EAGA or the Mekong delta region) toward this end.

• Migration for work is not a short term phenomenon but permanent feature and needs to be addressed as such.

• Acknowledgement through the workshop of the value for support services for migrant workers and innovative examples from Korea and Sri Lanka to name a few.

• Recognition of the value of maximizing the new skills of returning migrant workers at the re-integration point. It would be wasteful not to optimize effective utilization by the labor market.

• Acceptance that ‘guidelines’ are needed but there are many different ways to achieve skills recognition. Yet, there is a need for ‘guidelines’ which contribute towards mutual skills recognition amongst countries.

• Acceptance of the importance of RMCS to contribute to skills recognition.

• RMCS must be better known and promoted at national level; there is need for awareness.

• Capacity Building of National Agencies and Social Partners in the use of RMCS and development of National Competency Standards

• Guidelines in principle are supported. Significant editing has been proposed; e.g.

– Objectives to be clear and in line with ILO Declaration and DW agenda.

– New Agency not required unless necessary.

– More clarity required on constituents roles

– More recognition for the informal sector and low-skilled workers (e.g. domestic workers)

– Acknowledgement of the full involvement of all Constituents in all aspects of skills recognition (Standard development, Assessment, Portfolio development, training etc.)

– Role of Social Partners—government, workers and employers—need to be articulated more clearly to promote synergy, partnership and full involvement.

– Encourage institutionalization of bilateral cooperation at constituents’ level of both sending and receiving countries: employers, workers and government organizations. More cooperation is encouraged for natural Movements of Workers.

– Networking and sharing of experiences and good practices amongst Skills-AP Network Members advocated—and will hopefully continue

– Involvement of Employers in Receiving Countries: Skills needs? Mechanisms?

There. Our mandate as participants was to be fair and square to workers and employers and to lay down guidelines for workers to enjoy decent work and decent life through beneficial agreements between governments and employers.

In simple terms, workers are encouraged to continuously improve their knowledge and skills, document such improvements by both employers and workers and have these certificated by proper government agencies. When workers come home from overseas work, they bring home with them new knowledge and skills that are useful for our own industries. Governments and employers are urged to abide by guidelines, common to both sending and receiving counties, for recognizing these competencies and reintegrating returning migrant workers to the local job market.

Their take-home competencies could help local companies become more productive, competitive and profitable and, therefore, able to secure more jobs near home. When they decide to work abroad again, workers could look forward to getting decent compensation package and work environment. - MOJE RAMOS-AQUINO, FPM, Saturday, 25 September 2010

Feedback to innovationcamp@yahoo.com

Many OFW dream houses in ‘Little Italy’ still empty

MABINI, BATANGAS—Mediterranean-inspired, pastel-colored houses dot the coast and hills of this rural town in Batangas province, dwarfing their traditional counterparts made of unpainted concrete blocks under roofs of corrugated zinc.

The larger houses, many of them empty, belong to overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) who plan to return here one day.

Despite their absence, the OFWs have contributed money to help build roads, schools, water grids and other infrastructure usually handled by local governments. They pay for annual fiestas that were traditionally financed by municipalities, churches and local businesses.

Thanks to OFWs, Mabini became a “first-class” municipality last year in a government ranking of towns nationwide, leaping from just a “third-class” town.

In one barangay nicknamed Little Italy, where a quarter of the 1,200 residents are working in Italy, the OFWs shouldered 20 percent of the cost to construct a public hall.

“We couldn’t have finished it without the OFWs,” the barangay chair, Raymundo Magsino, 64, said in an interview inside the building.

OFW remittances, which the government says have been steadily rising sharply from $7.6 billion in 2003 to $17.3 billion in 2009, now account for more than 10 percent of the Philippine gross domestic product. The remittances are also the main factor driving the country’s recent economic growth, which would have otherwise remained stagnant.

OFWs, who typically work as maids, nurses or service workers abroad, began going abroad in large numbers in the 1980s.

Unhealthy dependence

But critics, including many OFWs, say the government has developed an unhealthy dependence on the remittances, turning a blind eye to their social costs, especially divided families and the reliance on them to pay for services while failing to build a sound economy that produces good jobs at home.

About 15 percent of the 42,000 residents of Mabini, about 130 kilometers south of Manila, live overseas, compared with an estimated national average of 10 percent.

One recent morning, Jocelyn Santia, 40, was packing her bags after two months of vacation here to return to her job as a housekeeper in Milan. She and her husband, who died six years ago, began working in Italy 20 years ago after they were recruited by an employment agency.

Santia’s grandparents and a brother raised her four children here, though the two eldest now attend college in Italy. Her sacrifice, she hoped, would yield good, white-collar jobs for her children.

Bitter about leaving

But with her departure—and yet another separation from her two younger children—looming before her, Santia expressed bitterness about having to leave her family.

“The economy is bad here, salaries are low,” she said. “It’s the fault of the government that so many Filipinos have to go abroad. If there were good jobs here, why would we ever think of going abroad?”

Mabini Mayor Nilo Villanueva said he had often heard this criticism from OFWs. Villanueva was elected in 2007 by campaigning in Italy and championing the interests of the overseas workers. The mayor connected Little Italy to the water grid last year.

Yet, even as Villanueva has sought OFW investments in a feed mill and other projects, the mayor said he worried about the town’s and country’s reliance on remittances. “Many people have become lazy now because they are overdependent on remittances,” he said.

Villanueva said the town not only counted on investment from its OFWs, but also had become dependent on their earnings in less direct ways.

School for OFW kids

Most OFWs here, for example, send their children to private elementary schools, which have smaller class sizes and offer richer educational and extracurricular programs.

“They are helping the municipal government because we are spending less on public schools,” Villanueva said.

At Santa Fe Integrated School, a private institution that charges an annual tuition of P16,354 ($370), about 80 percent of the 250 students are children of OFWs. About half of the students have both parents overseas and are being raised by relatives or housekeepers, said Louella D. de Leon, the principal.

Kate Michele Mendoza, 12, and her sister Christina, 8, are typical cases. With their parents working in Italy since Kate’s birth, both she and her sister live with their grandparents and two cousins, whose parents work in Oman. The parents return here once a year, staying one to two months.

“We go malling when they are here,” Kate said.

‘They are arrogant’

De Leon said that while the children of overseas workers were better off financially, they lacked discipline and scored poorer grades than the children whose parents were present.

“The kids of OFWs have everything in terms of gadgets—the latest cell phones that you can’t even find in Manila—and they have bigger allowances than even the teachers,” De Leon said. “But they have an attitude. They are arrogant.”

“I don’t understand their parents,” the principal added. “They are working as maids in Italy and they hire maids here to take care of their own children. They value their money more than their families.”

The national government has highlighted the positive effects of the OFW economy, calling the workers “heroes” and presenting awards for the model OFW family of the year.

Benefits outweigh costs

In an interview in Manila, Vivian F. Tornea, a director at the Department of Labor and Employment’s Overseas Workers Welfare Administration, said the benefits of the remittance economy far outweighed the costs.

Tornea denied that the national and local governments had become dependent on remittances, saying that OFW contributions to building public infrastructure were simply “payback” because they did not pay income taxes.

“Just as we get assistance from other funding institutions, why can’t we accept from our own nationals who are willing and capable of giving something for their own community?” she asked.

While the government has welcomed OFW remittances, it has done too little to ensure their long-term financial health, critics say.

Atikha, a private organization, provides financial literacy programs for OFWs in Mabini and elsewhere, who tend to invest in houses and vehicles that remain unused for years.

Debts incurred abroad

Ella Cristina Gloriane, a personal finance adviser at Atikha, said OFWs workers often incurred debts overseas to build their dream houses here.

“That’s one reason many of them can’t come home,” she said. “They have to keep working to repay their debts.”

In the Pulong Lupa neighborhood, about half of the houses belong to absent OFWs. No one answered the doorbell at several houses, but a caretaker, Jovel Bonapos, 16, appeared at the gate of a large pink house.

The house, Bonapos said, belonged to a couple and their four children living in Italy. They visited only once every two years, staying up to two months each time.

The house had four bedrooms and three bathrooms, and it is “completely furnished,” he said.

In a large house not too far away, Lorena Sawali-Baquillos, 37, lives with her three children while her husband works as a seaman.

Motivation

Baquillos, who leads a small organization of OFW families, said she understood the motivation behind building the Italian-style houses.

“Filipinos are stuck on status symbols,” she said. “After the sweat and tears of working in Europe for many years, they build a big house to show the fruits of their labor.”

“But it’s weird,” she added.

“How can you enjoy your house if you can only see it in photos? The houses have huge beds, even though they may use them only a few weeks a year. They’re fully furnished with plasma televisions and ovens, but there’s no one to bake a cake.” New York Times News Service/Philippine Daily Inquirer, September 20, 2010

Nation honors OFWs

THE NATION PAYS TRIBUTE to the Overseas Filipino Worker Sunday, Migrant Worker’s Day or Araw ng Pasasalamat, with festivities honoring some 40,000 OFWs and their families in 17 regions of the country.

The event acknowledges the social and economic advancement of OFW families as well as of the country, according to Administrator Carmelita S. Dimzon of the Overseas Workers Welfare Administration (Owwa).

“The celebration,” Dimzon said, “serves as an avenue for the government and its social partners to express their gratitude to all OFWs.”

The simultaneous festivities nationwide will feature entertainment, gift-giving and games for the enjoyment of OFWs and their families.

In the National Capital Region, Labor Secretary Marianito D. Roque will lead the festivities at the Ninoy Aquino Memorial Stadium in Manila.

Roque, Dimzon and a representative of sponsor Globe Telecoms will hand out awards to outstanding land-based and sea-based OFWs, financially and physically challenged OFWs, and the most senior OFW in attendance.

This year’s theme is “OFWs: Tagumpay sa Hamon ng Panahon, Kaagapay sa Pagsulong.”

Globe is the major sponsor with partners Banco de Oro-SM Supermalls, Land Bank of the Philippines, Duty-Free Philippines and Cebu Pacific Air.- Philippine Daily Inquirer, June 05, 2010

Belt-tightening by Migrant Workers Unfelt at Home

BATANGAS, Philippines, Dec 18 (IPS) - The global financial crisis may have dealt a severe blow to Filipino migrant workers, thousands of whom lost their jobs and fell into debt. But public schoolteacher Melinda Mendoza does not see this impact at all -- at least not within the four walls of her classroom.

On the contrary, Mendoza, 45, is bothered no end by her pupils’ ostentatious display of opulence in a poor rural setting, where luxury is atypical.

"They have huge allowances," says the teacher of 21 years in the government-run Pulong Anahao Elementary School, located in the town of Mabini here in Batangas province, a two-hour drive south of Manila.

On top of that, the students own electronic gadgets like mobile phones that are no match to those of a public school teacher like Mendoza. She earns a measly few thousands of pesos a month, hardly enough to buy a high-end unit that is a status symbol in this South-east Asian country, at least 30 percent of whose 90 million people live in poverty.

Mendoza says about half of her students are children of migrant workers, a great majority of whom work in Italy as domestic helpers, caregivers, nannies or factory workers.

These children’s parents earn what they can never earn in the Philippines, which has become the world’s largest exporter of human labour after its workers began going overseas in droves in the seventies. Today, Filipino domestic workers in Italy earn 60,000 to 80,000 pesos (1,287 to 1,717 U.S. dollars), or a lot more, a month.

"There is dependence on remittances among families," says Ricardo Casco, national officer for labour migration support of the International Organization for Migration (IOM).

Based on 2007 data from the World Bank, the Philippines ranks fourth globally in terms of remittances received, next to India, China and Mexico. In 2007, its remittances reached a whopping 14.45 billion dollars, up from only 103 million U.S. dollars in 1975.

Like many Filipino workers abroad, those in Italy were not spared by the crisis late last year that have since forced many offshore companies either to close shop or cut production, says Estrella Dizon-Añonuevo, executive director of Atikha Overseas Workers and Communities Initiatives.

A migrant worker’s monthly take of 1,500 euros (2,150 dollars) in Italy was reduced by half as a result of the crisis. Remittances to families in the Philippines in some instances dwindled by 15 to 20 percent at the height of the downturn, she says.

Yet, many Filipino workers scrimped and saved to ensure that they maintained the same level of financial support they had been giving to their families, says Añonuevo, whose NGO conducts financial literacy among migrant workers as part of its advocacy.

"There was belt-tightening among migrants," she points out. Some were forced to live with fellow workers to save on rent and keep money that otherwise should have gone to their own basic needs.

But Añonuevo also says the hardships these migrant workers endured hardly ever figured in discussions between migrant parents and their children in the Philippines that are often held through today’s modern technologies, including the Internet.

It was not uncommon to hear of Filipinos holding down several part-time jobs at the same time in order to continue sending remittances home. "What is the purpose of spending the best years of your life anyway?" asks IOM’s Casco.

This is why schoolteacher Mendoza hardly sees signs of migrant parents’ economic problems affecting her students’ lifestyles. Every day, in fact, she sees how the class divide plays out in her classroom.

At lunch breaks, she says, one can see who the children of overseas Filipino workers are – or OFW, as they are commonly called in the Philippines – and who are not. They have packed lunches and snacks – and money to buy more food in the school canteen – while many of the latter subsist on so little or none at all.

"I usually tell my students to share their food with those of their classmates who have no food," she says.

Mendoza worries that her students exemplify a materialistic bent born of a culture that has become dependent on remittances sent by their migrant- worker parents.

The village of Anahao, which has a population of less than a thousand, has benefitted quite a lot from the wave of migration for labour.

This was especially so in the nineties, when a village woman, unable to land a job even if she was a college graduate, packed her bags and left for Italy to work as a domestic helper. It did not take long before others followed in her footsteps, literally, inspired by her example and the fortunes that going overseas seemed to have brought her.

Soon, Anahao itself began to change. European-style mansions replaced wooden structures typical of a rural setting, earning it the moniker ‘Little Italy’. Farming was the main source of villagers’ income until the 90s, when families became entirely dependent on remittances and gave up ploughing.

Today, 15 percent of Mabini town’s residents works overseas. Seventy-two percent of them work in Italy, 10 percent in the Middle East while the rest is in the United States, Asia and elsewhere in the world.

Within and outside the village of Anahao and other parts of Mabini, one can hardly miss the telltale signs of a rural town that has tasted progress. Many more concrete houses are being built, expensive vehicles being driven around – among others to ferry children to school such as Mendoza’s – and private schools whose total enrollment far exceeds those of state-owned schools, because migrant parents equate them with better education.

"They even go to expensive hospitals," says Esperanza Balita, a municipal employee who was once a migrant worker herself.

Realty property taxes, an indicator of land and home ownership, have nearly doubled over the last decade, from 17 million pesos in 1998 to 31 million pesos (365,000 to 665,378 dollars) in the first quarter of this year.

Meantime, the outflow of migrant workers continues from a country that already has some 10 percent of its population working overseas in 190 countries. In 2008, at least 1.3 million Filipinos left for overseas work. Local communities worry about the continued social cost of migration, regardless of how hard times are putting great pressure on migrant parents overseas.

Village chief Raymundo Magsino, in an interview with IPS, says a number of youth in his community have dropped out of school, not for lack of resources as is often the case in many poverty-stricken areas of the country, and certainly not because of the economic crunch, but for sheer lack of interest.

Many young people here know they will be going to Italy anyway to join their parents, who, in less than a year of working there, provided they already have a working visa, are entitled to petition and have their children join them before they turn 18, explains Magsino. There, they can pursue their education or take on jobs common among Filipino migrants.

The attraction of leaving the Philippines is so strong that offers of free livelihood training –- so that they are productive while waiting to join their parents –- hardly had any takers, the former police chief rues. Yet these young people while away their time playing ‘tong-its’ –- a popular numbers game in the Philippines – or chatting on their computers or in some Internet shop.

Mabini mayor Nilo Villanueva has far bigger concerns -- and they are not about the impact of the financial crisis. "The usual close relationship between parents and children" is gone, he says in a report accompanying the results of a study conducted by his office on migration in his town.

This has been manifested in an increasing number of out-of-school youth, reported cases of rape, annulment of marriage, and a host of other social concerns that, directly or directly, may be attributed to labour migration.

Mendoza, the elementary schoolteacher, shares Villanueva’s concern. One of her pupils, whose parents work in Italy, have stopped coming to school, and she knows that this has nothing to do with the financial crisis. - Tess Bacalla*, Inter Press Service News Agency, Saturday, December 19, 2009 12:00 GMT

(*This feature was produced by IPS Asia-Pacific under a series on the impact of the global economic crisis on children and young people, in partnership with UNICEF East Asia and the Pacific.)(END/2009)

Impact of the global recession on international labor migration and remittances

Implications for poverty reduction and development in Nepal, Philippines, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan

Summary

The German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development has commissioned a series of country studies to assess the impact of the global financial and economic crisis on external migration, return migration, remittances, and the consequent effects on poverty and development. Migration is usually seen as a livelihood strategy by migrants and their families; and remittances provide important resources to finance everyday life. The first four country studies represent broad regional variety and were carried out in March 2009 (Mali, Nepal, Philippines, and Uzbekistan); studies on Albania, Armenia, and Tajikistan are currently being drafted. Read more...

Filipino Migration to Hawaii: A Tale of Tears

HONOLULU — Hawaii is a popular destination not only for tourists but also for migrants, and not without reason. But for the forebears of the Filipinos there, who now comprise one of the biggest Asian ancestry group on the island, getting there and planting their feet there was far from being a walk in the park.

Filipinos migrated in waves to Hawaii beginning in the very first years of the 20th century, when the island was a newly annexed territory of the US. Hawaii’s economy then was dominated by the owners of big sugar plantations. “The first Filipinos in Hawaii were sacadas (seasonal farm workers),” said Cora Avinante, an immigration lawyer who is also an expert on the history of Filipino migration to Hawaii.

“During the heyday of the sugar plantations, they recruited workers from the Philippines, starting in 1906, particularly from the Ilocos Region and the Visayas,” said Felipe Tan, a Filipino who works with the City and County of Hawaii, in a separate interview.

Based on a series of articles written by Grace Mateo for the Philippine History Site (http://opmanong.ssc.hawaii.edu/filipino/index.html), a project funded with a grant from the Hawaii Center for the Humanities and co-sponsored by the Filipino-American Historical Society of Hawaii and the University of Hawaii (UH) Office of Multicultural Student Services, the recruitment of Filipinos to Hawaii was organized by the Hawaii Sugar Planters’ Association (HSPA).

The HSPA, founded in 1895, “was an unincorporated, voluntary organization of sugar plantation owners in the Hawaiian Islands,” Mateo writes. “ts objective was to promote the mutual benefits of its members and the development of the sugar industry in the islands. It conducted scientific studies and gathered accurate records about the sugar industry. The HSPA practiced paternalistic management. Plantation owners introduced welfare programs, sometimes out of concern for the workers, but oftentimes designed to suit their economic ends. Threats, coercion, and divide and rule tactics were employed, particularly to keep the workers ethnically segregated.

“The HSPA also actively campaigned to bring workers to Hawaii. For instance, they opened offices in Manila and Vigan, Ilocos Sur, to recruit Filipino workers and provide them free passage to Hawaii. Similarly, the HSPA became a powerful organization that its tentacles reached as far as Washington D.C. where it successfully lobbied for legislation and policies beneficial to the sugar industry of Hawaii.”

The labor recruiters for the HPSA went to the Philippines and set up recruitment centers in Vigan, Ilocos Sur and in Cebu.

In 1906, the first group of Filipino recruits – composed of 15 Tagalogs – went to Hawaii. Eventually, however, a great bulk of the succeeding waves of Filipino migrant workers would be recruited from the Ilocos Region and the Visayas.

By 1907, there were 150 Filipinos in Hawaii. The number would swell to 639 by 1909 and 2,915 by 1910. An estimated 3,000 Filipino workers went to Hawaii yearly from 1911 to 1920. By 1919, Filipino workers in Hawaii numbered 10,354 – by then the second biggest ethno-racial group of workers on the plantations, next only to the Japanese who numbered 24,791. By the 1930s, the Filipinos had replaced the Japanese as the biggest ethno-racial group of migrant workers on the island – this, despite a temporary slowdown in the arrivals of Filipino migrants in the early 1930s due to the onset of the Great Depression.

The Tydings-McDuffie Law, passed in 1935, created the Commonwealth Government in the Philippines and also limited Filipino migration to the US and its other annexed territories to 50 Filipinos a year. But the HSPA successfully lobbied before the US Congress for an exemption. Their members were thus assured of a steadily growing supply of Filipino labor until the outbreak of World War II.

During the war, many Filipinos were transferred from the plantations to the defense industry, as a result of which the sugar plantations suffered from a shortage of labor. Between the end of the war and the granting of Philippine “independence,” the plantations organized another major recruitment campaign, and over 7,000 Filipinos – known as Sacada ‘46 – went to Hawaii.

Hawaii became the 50th state of the US on Aug. 21, 1959. In 1965, the Immigration and Naturalization Act was passed, allowing for the influx of petitioned relatives of previous migrants, as well as of occupational migrants (professionals like nurses and teachers). Filipinos went to the US, including Hawaii, within this particular wave of migration – which continues to this day.

The Filipinos had to contend with racial discrimination, including by fellow Asians, in Hawaii as in the mainland US and in other US-annexed territories. They were willing to work for the lowest wages (and were actually paid the lowest wages among the different ethno-racial groups on the plantations, according to Mateo), and were thus perceived as taking jobs away from workers of different ancestry.

“In Hawaii the Filipinos were looked down upon because they were usually laborers at the plantations, and the totem pole there is the laborers are at the bottom, and at the top would be the manager, who would usually be some Portuguese guy – white but not really white,” Avinante said. “They eventually started employing some Japanese as managers.”

Today, Avinante says, many Filipinos in Hawaii bear the marks of their forebears’ sad experiences with racial discrimination. Not only that: they continue to contend with racial discrimination, albeit of the more subtle kind.

“There’s this thing where they don’t say it to your face, the other races, but they make you feel they’re better than you,” Avinante says. “And that is why a lot of Filipinos here, when you ask them, say, ‘Oh, I’m Spanish’, or ‘I’m German”, and so on, but also say they’re part-Filipino, like their grandfather was Filipino, or something to that effect.”

Today, Filipinos in Hawaii number an estimated 175,147 out of a total population of 1.29 million, based on the American Community Survey of 2008, and make up one of the largest Asian ethno-racial groups on the island. - By ALEXANDER MARTIN REMOLLINO
Migrant Watch-Bulatlat.com, PUBLISHED ON NOVEMBER 23, 2009

More Filipino 'au pairs' going to Europe

OSLO - Filipino au pairs from Denmark and Norway are set to arrive here in Oslo this week for a conference to discuss their situation and come up with recommendations for problems they confront as au pairs.

More and more Filipinas are coming to Scandinavia and Europe to work as au pairs, a cultural exchange arrangement that allows cultural visits of young people from all over the world in host families in exchange for light work such as babysitting and some housework.

In Norway, the number of au pairs that have entered the country has jumped from 78 in 2000 to 2,090 in 2008 according to reports from the Norwegian Immigration Department (UDI). This means that 7 out of 10 au pair permits issued by the department are given to Filipinos despite the ban on au pair deployment by the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) since 1997.

In her 2009 FAFO research study, "On Equal terms? An evaluation of the Norwegian au pair scheme", Cecile Oeien attributed the high demand for Filipino au pairs in Norway to the global reputation of Filipinos as professional, hardworking houseworkers.

Exploitative?

However, the au pair arrangement has been widely criticized in Norwegian media as exploitative of young people who are being made to work as underpaid and overworked househelps in Norwegian households. Au pairs in Norway generally receive up to 4000 kroners a month (about P32,000) in allowance instead of a salary. The host usually shoulders travel and lodging costs, and language course tuition.

In another study, "Global workers in the Norwegian Welfare State", Ragnhild Sollund of the Norwegian Social Science Center (NOVA) found that Filipino au pairs in the country are generally contented with their situation but the arrangement, as it exists today, leaves room for exploitation and compares the au pair's situation to that of a "lottery" where one can either end up either with a good or bad employer.

This situation, Sollund says, is due to the unclear rules in the au pair scheme in Norway that does not allow compensation for more work done over that is stipulated in the scheme. The UDI rules specify that the au pair should only do light work, babysitting and care of animals but cannot perform work of a househelp or a full-time nanny. The distinction lies in the number of hours worked and not of the type of work performed.

Au pair protection

The FAFO study also shared Sollund's findings and recommended that the present structural framework of the au pair arrangement be redefined to reflect the changes in the actual work performed by the au pair, their relations to their employers in order to prevent possible exploitation. It also called for an establishment of an independent organization to protect the au pairs from exploitation by providing help to navigate the Norwegian bureaucracy, information on au pair regulations and the different public services that can be availed of.

Filipino au pairs who have encountered problems with their employers have often turned to social networks such as the church, Filipino organizations and even families and friends to seek help. There is, however, a growing need for a support mechanism for the au pairs such that initiatives to bring them together culminated in the holding of a conference.

The conference to be held on November 20, dubbed "Daughters of Globalization: A Conference about Filipino Au pairs in Denmark and Norway", is being organized by the Babaylan-Denmark, the Philippine Women's Network in Europe in cooperation with local Filipino organizations in Norway. - Macel Ingles, ABS-CBN Europe News Bureau | 11/18/2009 12:14 PM

16th century Filipino migration

Manila Men in the New World: Filipino Migration to Mexico and the Americas from the Sixteenth Century (BOOK): by Floro L. Mercene

The Filipino diaspora is at least four hundred years old. For two-and-a-half centuries, Filipinos by the hundreds traveled yearly to Mexico and the Americas, with many electing to stay and find a new life. The chief means for migration was the Manila galleon that sailed between the Philippines and Mexico to carry on a lively trade in Asian goods in exchange for silver from the Americas and the trappings of civilization from the West. The end of the galleon trade in 1815 did not stop the exodus of Filipinos to foreign lands as they began to discover the lure of other exotic ports in Asia and Europe. This book attempts to answer the question often asked: What happened to those Filipinos who started the diaspora? The answers are important because they fill a gap in the long history of this adventurous race. - http://booksfrombrookslibrary.blogspot.com/2009/11/history-16th-century-filipino-migration.html

Taking pride in family ties

Bird's The Word

Ever since Manny "Pacman" Pacquiao stepped into the limelight, people - strangers included - have been telling me that he is the only person Filipinos can be proud of.

Excuse me?

Although Pacquiao has become a boxing legend all over the world, especially after his winning fight against Miguel Cotto last weekend, he alone does not take on the responsibility of an entire nation's pride.

One reason why I think people associate me with the famous Filipino boxer is because he may be the only Filipino they have associated with through the media.

But Pacquiao isn't the only Filipino who has seen stardom in the U.S.

Arnel Pineda, the new lead singer of the band Journey, was selected above all the rest because of a YouTube video that showed off his vocal talent.

Black Eyed Peas singer, Allen Pineda Lindo, better known as Apl to fans - pronounced "apple" - represented Filipino pride in his song titled, "The Apl song."

This song is partly sung in Tagalog, a Filipino dialect. The music video illustrates a lonely Filipino veteran who wishes his family wasn't too busy to visit him in a retirement home. Apl's lyrics describe what life was like in his home country before he moved to the U.S.

Charice Pempengco was featured on Oprah last year when she showed off her ability to almost mirror Celine Dion's vocals in her rendition of "My Heart Will Go On."

Most of my examples are about well-known Filipinos in America, thus not really proving my initial point.

So besides all the glitz and glamour, we Filipinos also have a rich history to follow.

Filipinos' migration to the U.S. was not an easy ride.

My mom, for example, waited until she was 18 years old to move here after her eldest brother joined the U.S. Navy, and her other siblings slowly made their way to the States.

They knew that their family would have a better future working and living in America.

My dad was also 18 years old when he migrated to the U.S. He was blessed to have a father who was recruited to the U.S. Army in the Philippines for World War II.

But becoming a U.S. citizen was not an easy journey.

My grandfather was part of the Bataan Death March in 1942. During this war, Filipino soldiers were captured and tortured by Japanese soldiers.

At some point, he was found floating in a river, half dead, by my dad's home town of Hagonoy, Bulacan in the Philippines.

After the war, my grandfather became a U.S. citizen, which made my dad and his 11 siblings U.S. citizens as well.

Of the different stereotypes I have heard about Filipinos - family always come first, we're always late, we're very loud, etc. - my favorite, and the most accurate, is that we have a lot of pride.

I am part of the first generation of kids on the Vallejo side of my family. If you count my extended family, there are close to 60 of us living in the Bay Area, and there are even more Vallejos in the Philippines.

As a child, I was taught to be proud of who I am and to know my roots. And although I'm not completely educated on my ancestry, it's always good to know I have plenty of people that can teach me.

As far as I'm concerned, all ethnicities have their own culture and history that they can take pride in.

So please, if you ever see me, know that I'm more than just a Filipina who can be proud of the latest trend. My background is much more colorful.- Stephanie Vallejo, http://www.thespartandaily.com, 11/19/09

Where the trains run on time

Business World
Vantage Point -- By Luis V. Teodoro
NOvember 6, 2009

The results of a poll recently released by the US-based Gallup Organization say that some 700 million people worldwide would move to another country if they could.

No, Filipinos didn’t lead the pack, despite the 2007 finding that nearly 20% of the population would take the next plane for another country -- any country -- if they could, and Philippine airports’ being choked daily with the 6,000 people who’re either leaving for jobs abroad or permanently relocating elsewhere. Ahead of everyone else was the population of sub-Saharan Africa, of which 38% was most anxious to pack up and go.

Sub-Saharan Africa is a vast region south of the Sahara desert which includes practically every country (50) in the continent except the six countries that comp0se North Africa (Algeria, Egypt, Libya, Morocco, Tunisia, Western Sahara).

With a total population of around 650 million (or some 10% of the world’s total), the region includes some of the poorest -- and most volatile and conflict-ridden -- countries in the world, including such headline grabbers as Somalia and the Congo.
Sixty percent of all people with HIV -- the virus that causes AIDS -- are from the region, with an estimated 22 million men and women infected out of the global total of 32.9 million. Seventy-five percent of all deaths from AIDS worldwide occurred in the region in 2007.

With poverty, AIDS, ethnic cleansing, and such other woes as piracy and the proliferation of armed groups of various stripes as part of daily life in many countries of the region, it’s a wonder that the number of those who want to leave isn’t higher.

In contrast to Sub-Saharan Africans, Asians wanted least to leave, with only one in 10 of those polled saying they would, despite the number of Sri Lankans, Pakistanis, Indians. Bangladeshis, Indonesians, Filipinos, etc. who’ve left their countries to drive in New York or to scrub toilets in London.

As a sub-group, Filipinos are among the most likely Asians to leave. Some go as mail-order brides who end up sitting out winters in the US mid-West, others as truck drivers and construction workers braving improvised explosive devices and suicide bombers in Afghanistan. Large numbers of professionals, especially the doctors and nurses of which the Philippines has a shortage, also leave each month for jobs in other countries. While others leave as immigrants, the most preferred country being the United States, where there were 600,000 documented Filipinos in 2008, practically everyone who leaves for the US, Canada, or any other developed country would prefer to stay there permanently.

As for the undocumented -- the "TNTs" of Filipino migration lore -- they’re not only in the United States but also in places as diverse as Italy, the Middle Eastern countries (Dubai and Saudi Arabia, for example), and even Croatia.
Despite what seems to be the obvious answers (poverty, limited economic opportunities), why Filipinos leave has been a perennial subject of debate in talk shows, newspaper columns, and academic forums.

Some commentators attribute it all to greed. One broadsheet (not the BusinessWorld) excoriated a soon-to-be medical graduate who was planning to immediately leave for the United States for wanting to live in luxury and for his lack of patriotism, in a display of the self-righteousness the more comfortable in these parts share -- "comfort" being defined in terms of a house in a (flood-prone) Manila suburb, a car in the garage, and a six-figure salary at least.

The migration-as-greed thesis does have some validity -- but only in some cases, in which leaving the country for, say, the United States, is primarily driven by the immense propaganda impact of Western, mostly US, cultural fare to which allegedly "English-speaking" Filipinos are exposed 24/7. While more and more Western countries are adopting stricter immigration laws, the TV shows, movies, and music they blanket the world with daily continue to entice millions with dreams of an earthly paradise in New York or Sydney.

But while among the lower middle classes the desire for some level of luxury otherwise unattainable in the Philippines moves some Filipinos to leave, at least one other factor accounts for middle-class migration. It’s the desire for order and predictability, which in turn has a bearing on a family and its children’s future. If you can’t predict what will happen next year, or even next month, planning for the future doesn’t make sense. (Those who invested in college assurance plans, for example, found this out soon enough when the companies they had put their money in went bankrupt.)

One Filipino academic, asked why he moved to the US, quoted Benito Mussolini’s boast about fascist Italy: at least the trains run on time. Indeed the trains run on time, the mail’s delivered on schedule, and the garbage collected regularly in such places as much of Europe, the United States, Australia, Japan, Canada, and that emerging destination of choice, New Zealand. But it comes at a price, like having to live with racism and random violence.

If some Filipinos leave out of choice, many more do so because they have to. To this category belong migrant workers from poor families who can’t get jobs, or who do have jobs but still can’t provide their families with medical care, shelter, and education. More and more of these are women, and they’re the ones who’ve had to bear long hours of work, abuse, and even being beaten and murdered for the sake of parents, siblings, husbands, and children back home.

Mail-order brides are, on the other hand, not always solely driven by dreams of comfort. Many leave for countries they may not even know anything about so they can send home something for brothers, sisters, and parents. They’re not Out There in search of a place where the trains run on time and the mail’s delivered on schedule. They’re there because they need to be.

Comments and other columns: www.luisteodoro.com

Learned Fil-Can community gathers for landmark symposium

Friday October 23, 2009 was a watershed day for Filipino-Canadian research. The near capacity crowd of Filipinos and others participated in the National Symposium at the University of Toronto called “Spectres of In/Visibility: Filipina/o Lives in Canada.”

The daylong conference was the first of its kind in terms of the scope of issues discussed and the academic representation. The three panels covered “Gender, Migration, and Citizenship,” “Representation and Its Discontent,” and “Youth Spaces and Subjectivities.”

The speakers were predominantly Filipina/o professors or PhD candidates. Established academics, the next generation of academe, and community members presented papers, photos, a short film, artwork, and spoken word to the predominantly Filipina/o audience of around 150 people throughout the day.

The Symposium fittingly began and ended with one of its initiators, Prof. Roland Sintos Coloma, of the University of Toronto (U of T). The conference’s origin is as a dream of a group called Kritical Kolectibo, started by him and Prof. Bonnie McElhinny, also of the U of T. The group’s main objective is to develop the field of Filipino studies.

Kim Abis and Catherine M. Febria were thanked as the main student facilitators. Prof. Sintos Coloma then emphasized community participation stating academia is only relevant if it is joined with the community. Indeed, nearly all of the thankful audience members who spoke or asked questions identified themselves as members of some kind of community group. A delicious Filipino lunch and merienda was cooked and served by volunteers from the Philippine Women Centre of Ontario (PWC).

The importance of story telling was repeated several times at “Spectres of In/Visibility.” Telling one’s story was cited as one of the ways Filipinos can move away from the spectre of invisibility to substantial visibility. With this in mind, the full array of voices that spoke at the Symposium is represented in this article.

Keynote speaker, Prof. Eleanor Ty of Wilfred Laurier University (Laurier), discussed the preconceptions or stereotypes that come into play when you recognize someone as Filipino. Instead of the servile persona, she declared, Filipinos need to highlight and celebrate their successes, for example in leadership, academia, and activism.
In the first panel, Valerie Damasco, discussed her research into the recorded influx of Filipino immigrants to Canada in the 1960s and the policies involved. Lisa Davidson discussed how the Live-in Caregiver Program (LCP) is sometimes used as a means for family reunification. She also described the blurring of the distinctions between a domestic helper (a.k.a. yaya) and a domestic worker.

Ethel Tungohan called for LCP workers to act as full political agents. Liwliwa Rose Ann Torres spoke of working at a centre helping women escape oppression. But being overworked and under-paid herself, she came to realize she was one of those women. The discussant, Prof. Leonora C. Angeles of the University of British Columbia (UBC), addressed each of the papers. She also spoke to the title of the Symposium, stating Filipinos are invisible as professionals, but are visible in domestic-like roles in the service sector, and this needs to change.

The moderator for the second panel, called “Representation and Its Discontent,” was Celia Correa, whose social-realist artworks depicting the plight of migrants were on display. The “human zoo setting” of the around 1200 Filipinos living on a reserve on display at the 1904 World’s Fair in St. Louis was chronicled by Prof. McElhinny. She stressed the juxtaposition of ‘civilization’ and ‘savagery’ implicit in the display. The current exhibition at the ROM displaying artifacts from this Fair was criticized for not moving past primitivism also.

Photos of Jo SiMalaya Alcampo and her friends were accompanied by the good-humored telling of her advocacy efforts on lesbian, Filipino-Canadian identity. Librarian, Vernon R. Totanes, publicized his research on the Toronto Public Library’s stock of materials in the “under-represented” Tagalog section.

He showed how collections might not always be strategically placed, for example the small collection at the branch near St. Jamestown.

Prof. Sintos Coloma criticized the lack of representation of the racism experienced by Asian Canadians in textbooks. He refuted the multicultural ideals cited in the textbooks, and contended the absence of Filipinos in Canadian narratives represents a failure of those ideals.

The panel ended with a short film named after a controversial stance and slogan advocated by some, including the PWC. Scrap the LCP: The Struggle Filipino’s Women’s Liberation in Canada caused a heated debate on the issue. The slogan was criticized and defended, and a call to hear the voices of LCP workers who do not want the entire program removed, rather extensively revised, was raised. The need for drastic changes to the LCP, including landed status for caregivers, was a common call.

The youth of the Filipino-Canadian community were the speakers and theme of the third panel. John Paul C. Catungal examined the societal implications in the high profile, violent deaths of Filipino youth, Mao Jomar Lanot, Jeffrey Reodica, Deeward Ponte, and Charle Dalde. Christine Balmes presented the Balikbayan Renaissance, a term coined in 2003 by a member of the Kapisanan Centre in Toronto, Carmen Leilani de Jesus. The term refers to the recent resurgence of Filipino youth of the Diaspora interested in their cultural roots and the creative ways they are expressing their heritage. Maureen Mendoza recounted her case study on the Filipino student experience at the UBC.

Conely de Leon performed a spoken word piece on the Filipino associations to light and dark skin and was mirrored by a live painting of white words on a black canvas performed alongside her. She followed with highlights from her study surveying youths’ perceived differences between Mississauga and Scarborough peers.

Prof. Jeffrey Aguinaldo of Laurier was the last speaker and acted as a Discussant. He warned, “The language that we use to describe ourselves has costs and benefits… What we do to other Filipinos, we do to ourselves.” Jean Marc Daga ended the night with a spoken word piece. Participants were invited to dinner and drinks at the Duke of York.

This writer points again to the importance of story telling, but another reason all the official speakers are named in this article is because of my story. As a graduate With Distinction from the U of T, with degrees in English and Political Science, I have been captivated by Post-Modern and Post-Colonial Theory before. But it was not until last Friday that I was privileged to hear so many ideas expressed in the context of these theories, with respect to Filipinos and the Filipino Diaspora.
This article may be a lengthy roll call of the Symposium’s speakers, but it captures only mere glimpses to the wealth of ideas shared that day. Like other participants, this writer favors diversity, multiplicity, and more sharing of our accomplishments! - Dyan Ruiz, The Philippine Reporter (www.philippinereporter.com), October 30, 2009

‘Deprofessionalized Filipino’

TORONTO – Four main factors explain why Filipino immigrants get low-paying jobs in Toronto. These are their financial circumstances; the immigration programs used; the arbitrariness and unfairness of the credentialization process; cultural stereotyping, racism and discrimination.

These were the findings of the research, “Explaining the Deprofessionalized Filipino: Why Filipino Immigrants Get Low-Paying Jobs in Toronto,” by Dr. Philip F. Kelly, Mila Astorga-Garcia, and Enrico F. Esguerra.

These findings, along with recommendations, were presented at the study’s launch and seminar held Thursday, Oct. 29 at the OISE (Ontario Institute for Studies in Education) Auditorium to an audience of more than 180 people.

The study, published by CERIS (Joint Centre of Excellence for Research on Immigration and Settlement)-The Ontario Metropolis, is a research project collaboration between Dr. Philip Kelly of York University, and the Community Alliance for Social Justice (CASJ) — a coalition established five years ago with 27 founding organizations and over a hundred individuals.

“Given the class structure of Philippine society, the class origins of most Filipino immigrants, and the place of the Philippines in the global economic order, Filipinos generally arrive in Canada without significant financial assets, and this situation affects their integraiton into the labour market” says the study.

“In most cases, they need a “survival job” and cannot afford educational upgrading,” especially if they have to feed their families, the study adds.

The second major factor pertains to the use of certain immigration programs that tends to push them further from practicing the professions they have been trained for. It cites that around 20 percent of Filipino immigrants arrived through the live-in-caregiver program, and another 41 percent through family reunification.

This means that a large portion of immigrants have been separated from their immediate families for a significant period of time, and thus have to send money back home to their families, exacerbating their already difficult financial situation. Also those coming in through the caregiver program are restricted from pursuing further education and training in their field, so that even after they “graduate” from the program, they find work in caregiving and other low-paying precarious jobs, the study explains.

The third major factor has to do with the arbitrary way people’s educational credentials and training are assessed by professional regulatory boards that often pose as barriers toward access to professions. Specifically these regulatory boards seemed to be incapable of providing a fair assessment due to their seeming lack of knowledge about the quality of colleges and universities in the Philippines as well as the rigorous requirements toward professional certification.

The fourth factor is the stereotying of Filipinos in Canadian workplaces, as some of their virtuous inclinations for conscientious hard work and deference to managerial hierarchies are interpreted as un-managerial. Such stereotyping is considered a type of racialization and discrimination of Filipinos in the workplace, says the study.
The study’s findings were based on a survey and a series of focus groups and interviews. It also used quantitative information from Statistics Canada’s 2006 census data, as well as immigration data.

Over 1,100 survey questionnaires were distributed widely in the community, and 421 were completed, indicating a high degree of interest on the deprofessionalization issue by members of the Filipino community.

The study came up with policy recommendations to deal with the major factors responsible for deprofessionalizing Filipinos that includes regulating immigration fees to make them commensurate with income levels in sending countries so as not to place immigrants in dire financial circumstances and heavily burdened with debt; granting landed status upon arrival for those coming under the Live-in Caregive Program, and allowing them to enroll in upgrading educational and training courses in their field; Filipino professionals should be allowed to practice in Canada immediately. Should there be a need for skills upgrading, financial assistance should be provided to subsidize upgrading and bridging programs.

The study also touched on the reason why immigrants from the Philippines keep on leaving their homeland, even as majority of them end up in low-paying jobs. The difficult economic and political circumstances –made even worse by corruption and the curtailment of civil liberties — and the colonial mentality resulting from the long colonial history of the country were considered push factors for Filipinos to seek greener pastures in the West. Along with these push factors, however, the study noted as well that “the Philippine government has been actively encouraging the export of human labour through a variety of institutional structures” resulting in an increasing number of temporary overseas contract workers leaving the Philippines every year. The Philippine government benefits immensely from the remittances of these workers.

Even this early, the study has been hailed in academic and other sectors as groundbreaking and valuable on the subject of deprofessionalization, which used to be dismissed merely as anecdotal occurrences.

“Finally, we have a solid piece of analytical research backed by both quantitative and qualitative data that links deprofessionalization to the complexities of the distinctive avenues of immigration programs used by Filipino professionals to enter Canada, the Philippine class structure and class origins of such professionals in Philippine society, the process of social networking-based job searching, the problems related to credential assessment and professional regulatory bodies’ gate-keeping functions, and the cultural stereotyping of Filipinos. This study…has brought the debate on Filipino immigration and labor market integration in Canada to new levels,” says Dr. Leonora Angeles, Associate Professor of Community and Regional Planning and Women’s and Gender Studies, University of British Columbia.

From Aurora Javate De Dios, Executive Director of Women and Gender Institute (WAGI) of Mriram College, the Gender Adviser of the National Commission on the Role of Filipino Women (NCRFW), and the President of Board of Trustees of the Coalition Against Trafficking in Women - Asia-Pacific (CATWAP).

“For all of us studying migration (this) work will be very valuable . We sometimes call this phenomenon deskilling, but deprofessionalization is much more accurate if this becomes a permanent and lifetime situation. Hope to get a copy soon.”
From Felice Prudente Sta. Maria, Philippine cultural manager, policy maker and book author: “Hoping to get copies of the book for our local academics who study migration. Congrats for what is surely a worthwhile study.” - The Philippine Reporter (www.philippinereporter.com), October 30, 2009

EU-RP partnership deal will take 2 years - MacDonald

The Partnership and Cooperation Agreement between the Philippines and the European Union might take two years before being realized, an official said Wednesday.

Ambassador Alistair MacDonald, head of delegation of the European Commission (EC) to the Philippines, said the bilateral deal will need more time before it could be ratified by the EU’s 27-member states.

“Agreements like this usually take time," MacDonald said in a forum in Makati. “But we’ve made significant moves last week."

The PCA will build on and update the existing 1980 EC-Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Cooperation Agreement.

It is aimed at establishing a relationship based upon a modern policy agenda with an appropriate institutional framework, and enabling a policy dialogue on a wider range of issues, ranging from economic, scientific and cultural issues to political and social issues such as human rights, counter-terrorism and migration.

Some industry insiders likened the pact to the Japan-Philippines Economic Partnership Agreement (JPEPA) except that the PCA does not include trade agreements.

Last week, the second round of talks between the RP and EU started and both parties agreed for a need to boost protection of legal migrants and counter undocumented migration. The first meeting was made last February 2009.

Another round of negotiations was set for December in Brussels, Belgium.

So far, the Philippines and the EU have only agreed on eight of the 40 articles included in the PCA.

“It’s a long way to go, but I don’t want to rush it," said MacDonald.

He added that both parties have yet to agree on the migration aspect of the deal. He refused to comment further on the issue.

According to an estimate of the Commission on Filipinos Overseas (CFO), there were more than 953,000 Filipinos are scattered all over Europe as of December 2007. Of the total, 284,987 are permanent residents or immigrants, 555,542 are temporary residents (contract workers), and more than 112,000 are undocumented or overstayers.

Last week, Philippine Ambassador to Brussels Cristina Ortega said the European Committee seems to be opening up their policies for more immigrants since some of the member states are already aging.

Ortega, who attended the press conference at the end of the PCA second round of talks, said Filipinos remain unrivaled in the quality of their service, particularly in the hospitality and health care industries.

“They will be needing the Filipino service very badly in the future," Ortega told GMANews.TV. - JOSEPH HOLANDES UBALDE, GMANews.TV, 10/14/2009 | 04:29 PM

Women and Migration

Excerpt from Women and the crisis of civilisation
by Hall (Appeals Commission, Britain) and Philomena (IC, France)
http://internationalviewpoint.org

Over the past four decades, total numbers of international migrants have more than doubled, but the percentage of the world population migrating has remained fairly constant. There are now 175 million international migrants worldwide or approximately 3.5 per cent of the global population. About half this number is women, despite the common misconception that migrants are men. Most migration takes place to adjacent countries, and some takes place within countries as well as across continental borders.

In many countries of the south, remittances sent back by migrant workers play a crucial role in the economy. For the Philippines in 2008, annual remittances amounted to US$16.4 billion and in March 2009 alone, total remittances were US$1.47 billion. In seven Latin American and Caribbean countries, remittances even account for more than 10% of GDP and exceed the dollar flows for the largest export product.

As the crisis deepens, women’s migration will increase further for a number of reasons: women moving to work abroad because they cannot sell their labour power at home, or if they can, they cannot sustain their families on the income offered. For example, 4.5 million families in the Philippines cannot meet the minimum requirement for food.

In some situations, in fact, the majority of migrants are women: for example, from the Philippines 70% are women, employed mainly as undocumented domestic workers. The RMPP (Philippines section of the Fourth International) works in Europe to organise Filipina migrants and to try to win rights for undocumented workers.

Filipina women, like other women from Asia, Africa, Latin America and Eastern Europe, working as domestic workers are part of the global domestic care chain, where women in first world countries who want to be liberated from their domestic functions and pursue fulfilment in the public space by working have to find someone to replace them in their domestic functions. So, migration of domestic workers is a form of demand-based migration founded on the gender division of labour in receiving countries. This demand is met by Filipina women, many of whom have children of their own in the Philippines. Given the gendered division of labour in Philippine households, they cannot expect their husbands to take on their domestic workload in their absence. Furthermore, the husbands might themselves be migrant workers elsewhere (mainly in construction).

For migrant women, the solution to this problem is to in turn employ live-in domestic workers to care for their family while they are gone. In the non-migrant family, the absence of the mother creates a demand for care for her own children. Since they cannot afford to pay a domestic worker, this work is taken on by an elder daughter while the mother is at work.

At the end of the global care chain, this daughter assumes the role of mothering for her younger siblings, giving her less time to play, study, or work outside the home. Alternatively, the migrant’s mother cares for her children. Such grandparent fostering is a common constellation in societies of emigration. It takes pressure off the eldest children, but means that grandmothers can experience forty or fifty years of continuous child-rearing responsibility. While every woman in the chain feels she is doing the right thing for her family, hidden costs are passed along and eventually end up with the older daughter in the non-migrant household. As childcare work is passed down the chain, it diminishes in value and becomes unpaid at the end.

Migrant families are deprived of their mothers’ personal affection and care since they are already commoditized in the global market and traded internationally. This “new commodity” in the global market is well promoted and supported by the state. For example, the two women presidents of the Philippines (Aquino and Arroyo) made these migrant women “heroines” because they sacrifice their families in order for the Philippine nation to progress through remittances. President Arroyo promised the Middle East countries to send efficient and reliable domestic workers. They both called the migrant women workers the “new heroes” to pacify them in the face of the emotional distress of separation and exploitation.

The migrant women and their families are the sacrificial lambs of this neoliberal globalization. During global financial crisis, women migrants working in the domestic households are directly affected and cannot even claim severance pay when they lose their jobs because they are mostly undocumented.

Governments like that of the Philippines ignore their own legal obligations to protect migrant workers from their country (Republic Act 8042 (Migrant Workers and Overseas Filipino Act of 1995). For example, since 2002, six Filipino migrant workers have been executed in Saudi Arabia including one woman, and a number of others have been held on death row for crimes they clearly did not commit. The violence (beatings, rapes, forced detention) meted out to women migrant domestic workers from Asia, Africa, and Latin America in the receiving countries has been well-documented.

Of course not all those who migrate become migrant workers. Men, women, and children are displaced in huge numbers as a result of wars —including civil wars— and by climate change, which makes the places they were living uninhabitable. People try to escape political persecution by leaving their country of origin. Women may run from violence within the family or from forced marriages. Many of these flee as refugees, hoping for a place of safety in the country to which they run. Unfortunately the lot of the majority is to be treated as outcasts and scroungers.

Trafficking in women has also increased. The most publicised form has been trafficking for sexual exploitation of women, particularly from Eastern Europe, Latin America, and Asia to Western Europe, creating a huge network of forced sex workers. But there is also an increase in women being sold within their own countries as domestic slaves: recently, Peruvian feminists’ research showed that the largest number of women in their country subjected to trafficking were actually indigenous women kidnapped and sent to work as servants in other towns inside Peru. This is a sign of deepening inequality within countries.

Women who are refugees and/or subject to trafficking have even fewer rights than migrant women workers. The majority of refugees remain within other countries of the south. The conditions of refugees in the advanced capitalist countries has become worse over recent years with the “development” of more repressive measures in North America, Europe, and Australasia to keep out refugees as much as possible. This has taken a number of different forms, from making it harder for people to cross borders in the first place, imprisoning many of those —including pregnant women and children of all ages— who do so in barbaric conditions, and making access to what welfare provision still exists in the "host" countries more and more difficult.

Not only the far right, but increasingly mainstream politicians scapegoat refugees for the economic crisis. In Italy, the passage of an emergency law on rape in February 2009 was a cynical attempt by Berlusconi to scapegoat refugees, particularly Roma, for violence against women, while at the same time giving the state more power in general.

* Against the informal economy. For the regularisation of migrant workers’ status

The price of economic exodus

Perspective
Written by John M. Glionna / Los Angeles Times
MONDAY, 21 SEPTEMBER 2009 18:15

SANTA BARBARA—Looking down the main drag of this farm town, Police Chief Eric Noble marvels at the modern conveniences — by products of the fierce ties binding Philippine families. Sturdy houses with concrete foundations now replace the thatched huts of a generation ago.

There are new cars, washing machines, children attending private schools and former sharecroppers who have purchased the farms where they once worked as lowly laborers.

Such economic progress has come from remittances, the staggering $1 billion sent to families nationwide each month by Filipinos working overseas in an attempt to overcome extreme poverty and joblessness in their native land.

Since they began leaving their island nation in droves in the early 1980s, Philippine workers have become a staple in other nations worldwide, with the money they send home in many cases remaining steady despite the worldwide financial crisis.

Filipinos sent a record $1.5 billion home in June as more sought work abroad. Remittances for the first six months of 2009 reached nearly $8.5 billion, a 2.9-percent increase over the same period last year.

In her annual state of the nation address in July, President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo hailed remittances as a driving force behind the economy. Labor Secretary Marianito Roque separately described the remittance system as a source of pride.

MOTORCYCLISTS (top left) rush past a public market in Santa Barbara, Philippines. The market was built with remittances from the city’s many residents who work abroad. EDGAR DORIA, right, and his wife, Janet, right, want to leave their home in the Philippine city of Santa Barbara to seek work in Canada. They plan to leave with relatives their infant daughter, seen here, and two nephews they have been looking after whose parents already work abroad. LOS ANGELES TIMES PHOTO BY LUIS SINCO

“The flow of overseas worker money in an unstable global economy demonstrates the resiliency of the Filipino people,” Roque said. “Under the worst circumstances, our workers are getting jobs and sending home more money than ever. They are keeping the boat stable.”

But some critics say the money comes at a continued social cost. The poverty-stricken nation of 90 million has seen 10 million workers—more than 10 percent of its population—join the overseas labor force.

The exodus of trained teachers, health professionals and engineers, some say, has done the Philippines more harm than good as those much-needed services go elsewhere.

There are also distinct social problems that arise when heads of households leave for greener economic pastures, officials say.

Although Noble, the police chief, praises the financial boost remittances give his town, he said the system is draining the Philippines of a prized resource: its people.

“Every day you look and shake your head,” he says, “to see that someone else is gone.”

Many Santa Barbara residents realize they must leave their isolated town to achieve a better life. But with millions of the poor living atop garbage dumps and under bridges in Manila, they know their nation’s capital is not the solution.

And so they go abroad: One in 10 of Santa Barbara’s 80,000 residents work in places such as Italy, Taiwan, Singapore and the US.

But recent months have hit hard. Since last fall, when the global financial crisis struck, many overseas workers have been forced to secure second and even third jobs to keep the remittance flow constant.

About 200,000 overseas Filipinos have lost their jobs since then, economists say. Many have returned to the Philippines, where, accustomed to the better salaries and working conditions abroad, they often do not want to take any available jobs.

Others are hounded by job placement businesses to repay hefty travel and work setup fees the agencies have laid out in advance of workers leaving the Philippines. “They’re stalked by loan sharks who threaten their lives if they do not pay,” said Garry Martinez, chairman of Migrante International, a watchdog group.

The remittance system has also altered the lives of the stay-at-home families of overseas workers.

A recent International Monetary Fund study found that many extended families of overseas Philippine workers are refusing to pursue jobs at home that they consider too low-paying, preferring to rely on their monthly remittance cut.

There are social problems as well.

As parents leave home, children get left with relatives or friends who may not provide adequate supervision, which can lead to substance abuse and gang membership, says Tony Sarmiento, a Santa Barbara city official in charge of monitoring the overseas worker program.

“The worst part of this human export policy is that [the government doesn’t] make the hard choices back home,” said Benjamin Diokno, a professor at the University of the Philippines School of Economics.

Some analysts say the Philippines must find ways to raise salaries to keep trained professionals from leaving the country. Statistics show US salaries for some professions are more than 10 times higher than in the Philippines.

Teachers and nurses can make $25,000 to $45,000 in the US doing work that pays about $3,600 a year in the Philippines, according to professional associations.

“We don’t work toward a dynamic economy that would create more jobs,” Diokno said. “Instead we rely on that paycheck from abroad.”

Far from home, Lenin Posario is busing tables in Alberta, Canada, and mowing lawns to make ends meet.

He has made twice the salary he was making as a banker in Santa Barbara, enough to put his two oldest children in private school. But the loneliness sometimes threatens to drive him mad.

His wife, Ruth, was six months pregnant with their third child when he left nearly two years ago. He was headed for Canada to provide the family with a better life. Still, she felt abandoned.

“I was pregnant and emotionally unstable and suddenly a single mother,” she recalled. “I couldn’t stop crying.”

“It’s the price we have to pay, or our families will suffer,” he said, sitting in his living room on a visit to Santa Barbara.

Maryann Bollesar also knows the anguish of missing her family. Two years ago, she joined her husband in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, where the former teacher works as a helper in a real-estate office.

She left her two young sons with her younger brother in Santa Barbara. Each Friday, she talks to them over the Internet, able to see them via remote camera.

“I see how much they’ve grown without me, and I want to burst into tears; I miss them so much,” Bollesar said. “But I try not to cry in front of them.”

Her son Francis Ivan, now 6, a boy who likes basketball and hamburgers, stood in the living room of his uncle’s home and talked about a mother he hasn’t seen in two years.

“I want to hug her,” he said, staring at the floor. “Every week, I ask her, ‘Mommy, when are you coming home?’”

But the boy’s life is about to take another lonely turn.

The uncle he lives with, Edward Doria, wants to move to Canada. He and his wife plan to leave their own newborn daughter, along with their two nephews, behind with other family members.

Doria said he tries not to feel guilty.

“It’s a toxic choice, but we have to go,” he said. “We’re leaving the Philippines for the sake of the people we love.” - http://businessmirror.com.ph

OFW group to challenge UK immigration rules

By Jerome Aning
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 21:42:00 08/31/2009

MANILA, Philippines - An alliance of Filipino migrant groups in the United Kingdom is set to file a legal challenge before a British court to obtain a definitive ruling on the eligibility of overseas migrant workers applying for permanent settlement after five years of continuous stay in the UK.

The London-based Kanlungan said the UK Border Agency changed the rules for permanent settlement at least three times, leaving many migrant workers, including Filipino caregivers, unable to fulfill residency requirements.

Kanlungan said it was seeking a judicial review from the British High Court of Justice on behalf of thousands of overseas senior care workers who have gaps in their visas.

A judicial review is a type of court proceeding in the UK judicial system in which a judge reviews the lawfulness of a decision or action made by a public body.

“The UK Border Agency has been refusing applications for indefinite leave to remain by senior care workers on the basis that there is a gap in their employment and stay in the UK,” Kanlugan chair Benny Clutario said in a statement sent to the Inquirer.

Clutario pointed out that the agency should not be refusing such applications because the gaps were a direct result of retrospective changes in immigration rules between 2006 and 2008, and not because of any violation of immigration laws by migrant workers.

He recalled that in 2006, the UK government changed the requirement for applying for permanent settlement from four years to five years and applied this retrospectively to all migrants.

Thousands of senior care workers were caught by the change and had to re-apply for an extension of their work permit and visa for at least another year, he recounted.In 2007, the UK government imposed new requirements for renewals of work permits and visas for senior care workers, requiring them to have skills and qualifications at National Vocational Qualification (NVQ) Level 3, which is roughly equivalent to a university degree and a minimum salary of £7.02 (about P550) per hour.

As a result, over 3,500 work permits of senior care workers were not renewed, Clutario said.

The new rules were challenged by Kanlungan and other migrant organizations and trade unions in Britain.In 2008, the UK Border Agency issued transitional measures and granted several concessions.

The agency said senior care workers who had their work permits approved prior to Dec. 31, 2003, and who remained with the same employer for their existing work permit, would be granted an exceptional extension for a maximum of 12 months, provided the permit holder had not left the United Kingdom.

The skills criteria and the required salary of £7.02 would be waived.Meanwhile, those who arrived in the UK after Dec. 31, 2003 (and who had not left the UK ), would only have the skills criteria waived.

Work permit renewals with the same employer or with a new employer would still require that the employer pay them £7.02 per hour.

Clutario said in March 2006, the British government gave further concessions for those who had lost their jobs, their work permits and their leave to remain due to the rule changes.

Guidelines that were issued allowed the affected migrants to apply for a new work permit, with employers paying £7.02 per hour, as long as the application was made within six months of the date they lost their right to remain in the UK.

Clutario said many senior care workers, with gaps in their visas within their five years of stay in the UK, have tried to apply for indefinite leave to remain.

However, they were refused by the Home Office and told that they should fill the gaps in their visas and re-apply when these gaps have been completed.Some have yet to find new employers willing to pay them £7.02 an hour and who are therefore, staying in the UK as undocumented migrants, according to Clutario.

“When migrants lose their visas, this does not automatically result in all these workers leaving the country. It almost certainly translates into a significant number of workers staying in the UK as undocumented migrants. Sadly, they become undocumented not by choice but because of misguided policies and mismanaged immigration,” he said.

Kanlungan called on senior care workers who have experienced gaps in their visas due to changes in immigration rules to come forward and provide evidence.

“The more senior careers involved in this legal action, the better the chance for success," Clutario said.

Non-Jewish migrants could offer immense benefits to Israel

Boosting the Israeli nation

Yaron London
http://www.ynetnews.com
Published: 09.15.09

In contemporary Hebrew, a “Filipino” is not a woman who hails from the Philippines, but rather, one who takes care of the elderly and disabled. I already heard someone utter the phrase “my Filipino is Polish.” However, the one who lives with us really is Filipino. Her name is Ninette, just like the popular Israeli singer, but our Ninette does not sing. She speaks softly and infrequently.

Our Ninette is devoted, kind, honest, and wise. We speak in Hebrew and broken English. In Manila, she earned a degree in Management Administration, and even though I have been unable to elicit any word about management theory from her, I know that she plans her family’s life for the very long term.

She is married and a mother of two. Her husband, who stayed in their home country and takes care of the kids with what we refer to as “motherly” devotion works in construction. Her overall salary is $1,100 per month. Half of it is invested in the children’s education. The parents decided to send them to an expensive private school.

I see them through the Internet and Ninette’s laptop. I do not understand their language, but I hear the mother’s and children’s tone of voice. My heart breaks.

Three years have passed since she arrived in Israel. The sum she paid the mediators equals a two-year salary. At fault for this robbery are the authorities that abandon work migrants in the hand of predators. A little more than two years are left before her work permit expires. Her expenses are slim, and therefore I estimate that she will transfer about $25,000 to her family. She believes she’s lucky.

The other day I asked her what she’ll be doing when she returns to her homeland. “I’ll try to complete an MA in Psychology, distinguish myself, and teach at college,” she said. We like to flatter ourselves and say that studies have been the heartfelt aspiration of Jews for generations, yet I’m doubtful whether you will find amongst us a person who scarifies so much in order to acquire education for herself and her children.

Immense benefits

I asked Ninette a question that I ask almost any work migrant I encounter: “If you could, would you acquire Israeli citizenship, with all the obligations this entails?” As you can guess, the answer is almost always an excited “yes.” Had we been up to this challenge, Israel would have gained a large group of young and determined immigrants who are both enthusiastic and loyal. This is the typical profile of work migrants everywhere.

People are flexible creatures. They easily get accustomed to foreign cultures and turn into patriots in their adopted country. This will happen to our neutralized work migrants. Within a decade, their children will do a project at school to remind themselves where their parents came from.

However, the soul of the Jews, the most flexible nation in the world, sizzles with racism, which does not allow them to level-headedly consider the immense benefits of work migration. Over the weekend I found two references to it: An immigration policy proposal presented by the Metzilah Center, and another notion addressed in Dan Margalit’s new book.

The Metzilah document’s weakness has to do with the fact that its authors view immigration as danger and almost completely ignore the benefits inherent in it. Meanwhile, Dan Margalit writes that he encourages his many friends to establish a conversion center in “Europe or America” that will absorb no fewer than 100,000 people into the Jewish nation every year. But why do it in a capital located in the northern hemisphere? Is it because of the skin color of potential converts? And besides, why convert immigrants? And if we do convert them, then why should we offer them “expedited conversion?” And if we do go for expedited conversion, why don’t we start with the roughly 700,000 “non-Jewish Russians” and work immigrants that live amidst us?

Overseas Workers Prop Up Asia

By Philip Bowring
http://asiasentinel.com/
Friday, 11 September 2009

A half-dozen countries continue to feast off inward remittances despite the global downturn

Worker remittances to Asian countries have held up far better than expected during the global economic downturn. However, there are plenty of exceptions, gaps in the data and concerns that the negative response is being delayed. Employment is a lagging economic indicator, and migration data is further lagged.

According to a report by the US-based Migration Policy Institute, the major countries in Asia most reliant on remittances – Pakistan, Bangladesh, and the Philippines all experienced remittance growth in the first half of 2009, in the cases of Pakistan and Bangladesh by double digit amounts. The Philippines was in positive territory by only a small amount but even that was a creditable performance given the wide geographical distribution of its workers and greater relative numbers in badly hit western countries than in Saudi Arabia and the Gulf countries, main destination for south Asian workers.

This record is in stark contrast to dramatic declines in remittances to Turkey and Poland as workers have had to leave recession-hit Western Europe for home. Other major sufferers have been Ecuador and Morocco – heavily reliant on work in Spain – Kenya and US-dependent Mexico where they were down by around 10 percent.

Although there have been some layoffs in Gulf countries due to the running down of the construction boom, employment in Saudi Arabia, the largest destination, has held up very well.

Not all the reasons for better than expected performance are comforting. One, according to the report, is that decisions on returning home are at least as much determined by conditions back home as by job opportunities in the receiving country. Another is that governments such as those of the Philippines and Bangladesh have stepped up efforts to send workers overseas, perhaps in the process resulting in a lowering of employment standards and wages.

President Arroyo urged the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA) to refocus its efforts from “regulation to full-blast development efforts”. New destinations for Bangladeshis include countries as diverse as Romania, Sudan and Algeria where workers’ rights may be even weaker than elsewhere.

In the case of Bangladesh, the numbers deployed overseas grew by 5 percent in 2008 to 875,000. That looks satisfactory but is a sharp slowdown on the growth of previous years. In 2009, the numbers are likely to be hit by new restrictions in Malaysia, which accounts for 10 percent of the total.

The comparative data from the Migration Institute also omits Indonesia so it is unclear how far problems in Malaysia have affected this major destination country for Indonesians.

The situation for migrant workers in northeast Asia is mixed. For example in Taiwan there have been big cutbacks in manufacturing work permits (mostly Vietnamese, Thai and Filipino) and construction (mostly Thai) but employment of care givers and maids (mostly Indonesian) continues to rise.

Indeed everywhere care giving and domestic work appear much more stable than other work, which would also account for the stability of remittances to the Philippines from otherwise hard-hit western Europe.

Japan has been sending home Nikkeijin (foreigners of Japanese descent, most Brazilian) and Korea reducing the numbers of ethnic Koreans from China.

Data for most of the recipient countries in Southeast Asia is scanty. Thailand announced that that it would not renew work permits for some 500,000 foreigners, most from Cambodia and Burma, but the actual state of affairs is cloudy and large numbers of undocumented workers remain there as in Malaysia.

The document devotes much space to China’s internal migration issues. It notes that most who returned to rural areas from the coastal cities hit by the export downturn could not find jobs so would likely move again at the first opportunity.

However it has no information on China’s own labor exports which anecdotal evidence suggests may have been rising as Chinese companies and official aid efforts have expanded at a rapid pace. According to the China Daily there are now about 1 million Chinese working overseas.

Looking ahead, the economic outlook is now much better than six months ago. The recovery of the oil price in particular bodes well for stability in employment in Saudi Arabia and the Gulf. However it is not clear how many of the huge number of workers on three-year contracts will have to return on contract expiry and whether new deployment will continue to run ahead of returnees.