Heroes or slaves? THE TRAVAILS AND MISERIES OF THE OVERSEAS WORKERS

By Manny Piñol

Many years ago while still working with a news agency, I came home from a foreign travel sporting a long hair and carrying a shopping bag.

The immigration officer who received my passport at the Manila International Airport (MIA) winked at me and said “wala ba tayong pasalubong dyan, kabayan?”

When I told him that I was a news reporter and not a seaman, he smiled sheepishly and handed me back my passport and waved in the next returning passenger, perhaps to continue preying on another homecoming Filipino worker.

Things have improved now, especially for the Immigration and Customs personnel at the NAIA who have shown a certain degree of discipline and courteousness in dealing with passengers.

Until today, however, the overseas Filipino workers have remained victims to an insensitive and uncaring government and the syndicates who look at them as gullible preys in their many money-making schemes.

The exploitation of the Filipino overseas worker starts by the time they process their documents for them to be able to work abroad.

They queue up early in the morning for the long wait to apply for their passports then go through another rigorous process of obtaining their work permits and paying fees and insurance fees before they are allowed to leave.

At the airport, they are herded like cattle and treated like second class citizens.

When they come home after a year-long absence from home, they are met by the vultures – from the foreign exchange counters who offer lower rates for the dollars and who try to pull a fast one by shortchanging the dollars to the conveyor attendants who pry open their Balikbayan boxes.

The porters, the security guards, the taxi drivers and all the others swarm on the hapless returning worker to fleece him of whatever could be taken.

The biggest culprit in the exploitation of the Filipino overseas workers is their own government.

It is beyond comprehension why a government which has failed to provide jobs for its people would make life difficult for those who were able to find employment abroad.

A more sensitive and caring government which realises its shortcomings in job generation should even facilitate the processing of the workers documents.

In 2000, when I was Governor of North Cotabato, the provincial government designed a jobs generation program called Jobs for Economic Enhancement Program (JEEP) which organised Jobs Fair and extended no-interest loans to job applicants for their placement fees.

The program was able to assist about 1,000 workers 96% of whom were able to pay back their loans to the provincial government.

The program was recognised by the Department of Labor and Employment as one of the most outstanding jobs program in the country.

But more than the award, the program was able to lift about 1,000 families from the ranks of the poorest of the poor.

Would it not be a sign of genuine concern if every Filipino who finds work abroad is given a free passport and life insurance by his own government?

There are about 10 million Filipinos living abroad, obviously to find work and 2.3 million of these are Overseas Contract Workers.

The fees collected by government from them amount to billions of pesos and nobody has yet given the workers a complete accounting of where their contributions went.

Government’s uncaring attitude towards the overseas workers was highlighted by Malacañang’s dismissive statement that the victims of the “Laglag Bala” syndicate could just go to the complaints desks in the international airport.

This is how government treats its citizens who are called “Modern Day Heroes” who boost the national economy with the billions of dollars they send home.

Things could change, however, as the elections near.

With over 1 million Overseas Filipino Workers registered to vote next year, expect those who are running for the country’s highest posts to remember the OFWs again.

The mood of the OFWs, however, is sour.

They are shouting one message: “It’s Payback Time!”

(Photo credit: Returning workers photo downloaded from Asian Journal. OFW lane photo downloaded from Immigration Commission website.)