(First of Three Parts)

IN 2006, the Philippines “celebrated” a milestone when it breached the one-million mark with the deployment of 1,062,567 Filipino workers to more than 180 countries.

Now the country wants to break through the 200-country barrier.

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To this end, President Gloria Arroyo’s Administrative Order 247 last December directed the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA) “to execute a paradigm shift” from regulating the private sector’s overseas placement of workers, to going “full-blast” in exploring new job markets itself. POEA was tasked to “aggressively deploy” Filipinos abroad.

This came amid fears that overseas Filipino workers (OFW) would be displaced after the sub-prime mortgage crisis in the United States quickly became a global crisis.

The United States is where 32 percent of the more than 8.7 million overseas Filipinos live and work.

Abuse

But the civil society network Philippine Migrants Rights Watch says AO 247 will only subject more Filipinos to external conditions, over which the government has little
control. It called on Arroyo to strengthen the local economy instead so there will be enough local jobs for all Filipinos.

But this will take time, and the citizens are baying for jobs—now. And definitely there are not enough local jobs.

The National Statistics Office said 2.85 million Filipinos were jobless in January. So what’s a President to do?

Hunger

In 2000, the Philippines reaffirmed its commitment to meeting the United Nations Millennium Development Goals (MDG) which, among others, involve halving, between 1990 and 2015, the proportion of people suffering from hunger, and achieving “full and productive employment and decent work for all.”

Six years from the deadline, the Philippines seems to have made gains.

Poverty incidence fell to 30 percent of the population in 2003 from 45.3 percent in 1990, according to the Philippine report on meeting the MDGs.

But even if the government were to hit its poverty reduction target of 22.65 percent in 2015, that is still a lot of poor Filipinos.

Full, or even decent, employment remains a dream for many.

More females leaving

The report said 72 percent of newly hired OFWs in 2005 were women, “indicating a lack of opportunities locally for decent work and livelihood.”

And with the average cash remittances of women only 60 percent that of men, this indicated that female OFWs were “in lesser skilled and often unprotected lower-paying jobs,” making them vulnerable to abuse.

Poverty reduction requires jobs, but what if the jobs are overseas?

In this three-part special report, Sun.Star Cebu examines the costs, challenges and benefits of sending Filipino workers overseas amid the global economic crunch and the continuing social cost of deployment.

It also looks into government’s efforts to protect OFWs, the institutions that help OFWs and their families deal with migration realities, and the alternatives to migration for those seeking to give up the itinerant life for good.