[Marxism] LA Times: The Export of Workers

["John A Imani" <johnaimani2@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

The Overseas Class
Millions working abroad help their nation get by, but not prosper. It's a life 
of lonely, risky sacrifice.
By Richard C. Paddock, Times Staff Writer
April 20, 2006 


They nurse the sick in California, drive fuel trucks in Iraq, sail cargo ships 
through the Panama Canal and cruise ships through the Gulf of Alaska. They pour 
sake for Japanese salarymen and raise the children of Saudi businessmen.

They are the Philippines' most successful export: its workers. 
Three decades ago, seeking sources of hard currency and an outlet for a 
fast-growing population, then-President Ferdinand Marcos encouraged Filipinos 
to find jobs in other countries. Over time, the overseas worker has become a 
pillar of the economy. Nine million Filipinos, more than one out of every 10, 
are working abroad. Every day, more than 3,100 leave the country.

Philippine workers sent home more than $10.7 billion last year, equal to about 
12% of the gross domestic product. 

The current president, Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, calls them "the backbone of the 
new global workforce" and "our greatest export."

Worldwide, these workers have earned a reputation for enterprise and hard work. 
They include some of the Philippines' most talented people, well educated and 
multilingual.

But as a third generation leaves to work abroad, it is clear the system has not 
led to prosperity. Policymakers have focused on easing the flow of workers 
rather than harnessing their earnings for economic development. 

Dependence on the export of people has become a formula for stagnation. Once 
one of the strongest in Asia, the Philippine economy now ranks near the bottom. 
The government invests little money in manufacturing, education or healthcare. 
The economy can't create even the 1.5 million jobs a year needed to keep up 
with population growth.

"We have a middle class, but they don't live in the Philippines," said Doris 
Magsaysay Ho, head of a company that dispatches 18,000 workers a year to serve 
on ships around the world. 

Filipinos work in every country except North Korea, said Labor Secretary 
Patricia Santo Tomas, whose brother is a doctor in Orange County. More than 2.5 
million work in the United States and nearly a million in Saudi Arabia.

The money they earn trickles into towns and villages, helping build houses, 
open restaurants and send children to school. But the absence of so many 
industrious and skilled people - mothers and fathers, engineers and 
entrepreneurs - exacts a heavy toll.

Across the Philippines, children are being raised by their grandparents. "Now 
children can buy a lot of computer games, but they don't have a mother or 
father, or both," Santo Tomas said.

For the sake of supporting their families, the overseas workers endure years of 
loneliness. Some, especially maids in the Middle East, suffer beatings and 
sexual abuse. In countries such as Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, they are jailed for 
running away. Yet the Philippines has grown so dependent on remittances that 
the thought of doing without them is frightening.

(JAI:  Full text at

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/remit/la-fg-remit-special,0,7168068.special
  

Other parts of the Series:

    Mexico- 
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-remit16apr16,0,6081387.story

    Haiti- 
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-remit18apr18,0,6998895.story


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