About E San Juan JrDr. E. San Juan, Jr. was recently Fulbright professor of American Studies at Leuven University, Belgium, and visiting professor of literature at National Tsing Hua University, Taiwan. He directs the Philippine Cultural Studies Center in Connecticut and serves as co-director of the Board of Directors, Philippine Forum, New York. Among his recent books are BEYOND POSTCOLONIAL THEORY (Palgrave), RACISM AND CULTURAL STUDIES (Duke University Press), and WORKING THROUGH THE CONTRADICTIONS (Bucknell U Press). He will be a fellow at the Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio Center in Italy this Fall 2006.
Overseas Filipino Workers: The Emergence of an Asian-Pacific Diaspora
In 2004, OFWs sent $8.5 billion, a sum equal to half of the country’s national budget. In 2007, they sent $14.45 billion and $15.65 in 2008. For this they have been celebrated as “modern day heroes” by every president since the export of “warm bodies” was institutionalized as an official government policy. Arroyo tried to honor these expatriates: “We take pride in our overseas Filipinos…for your sacrifice and dedication to your work, your family and your nation” (GMA News.TV, 7 Oct 2006). OFW earnings suffice to keep the Philippine economy afloat and support the luxury and privileges of less than 1 percent of the people, the Filipino oligarchy. It therefore helps reproduce a system of class inequality, sexism, racism, and national chauvinisms across the international hierarchy of core and peripheral nation-states.
It bears repeating that the Philippines today ranks as second to Mexico as a “sending country,” with remittances topping those of Mexico and India, comprising over 10% of GDP. OFWs bring in more money than banana exports (the country is the world’s third largest producer) or tourism. The processing fees collected from OFWs, as well as those obtained from bank transactons, amount to billions of pesos.
In 2006, for example, the OFW remittance was five times more than foreign direct investment, 22 times higher than the total Overseas Development Aid, and over more than half of the gross international reserves (De Lara 2008). In sum, OFW remittance contributes to paying the foreign debt, heightens household consumerism, disintegrates families, and subsidizes the wasteful spending of the corrupt patrimonial elite. It is not invested in industrial or agricultural development (IBON 2008). Clearly the Philippine government has earned the distinction of being the most migrant- and remittance-dependent ruling apparatus in the world, mainly by virtue of denying its citizens the right to decent employment at home.
When the bombardment of Beirut and other regions of Lebanon occurred three years ago, thirty thousand OFWs were caught in the war, with hundreds crying for repatriation. Despite billions of pesos in taxes and numerous fees, the Arroyo administration proved completely helpless, unable to help protect its citizens. Interviews of Filipinos in Lebanon, as well as in Israel and Iraq, have confirmed the bitter truth of their collective distress: many prefer to stay in their place of work at the mercy of gunfire and missiles rather than return to their homeland and die of slow starvation. We recall how Filipinos reacted when the Arroyo regime prohibited travel to Iraq on account of OFW Angelo de la Cruz’s kidnapping—they said they would rather go to Iraq to work and be killed instantly rather than suffer a slow death by hunger in their “beloved Philippines.” Lives of quiet desperation? Indeed the pathos of the OFW predicament is captured tersely by de la Cruz’s response after his release by his kidnappers in July 2004: “They kept saying I was a hero…a symbol of the Philippines. To this day I keep wondering what it is I have become” (San Juan 2006).
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