Friday, February 08, 2008 Pinoy workers in America to go for Clinton
IF YOU were to ask a Filipino expatriate living in the US which candidate to choose, overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) there will probably say "Clinton."
Even the close primary fight between Democrat presidential candidates Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama has not escaped the attention of OFWs in America, said Philippine Overseas Employment Authority (POEA) Regional Director Delfin Camarillo.
"It could be because most of our OFWs are women. That is why they would go for Clinton," Camarillo said.
According to POEA statistics, 61 percent of OFWs are women. They are either household skilled workers (HSW -- the new term for Filipino exported domestic help) or nurses and other health care workers now living in the US.
"It could simply be because Clinton has captured the women-power in the US or it could be because of the immigrant policies espoused by Clinton," she added.
In the February 5 Super Tuesday push (Wednesday in Baguio) Clinton was leading Obama in California due mainly to the high immigrant population in the western state, analysts of CNN cable network said. The same is true in New York, they added.
But an American political satirist said the seeming power of Clinton could lie in the fact that every spurned and cheated woman in America went out to vote for her during Super Tuesday.
The primaries in the US are the means by which the two main political parties -- the Democrats and the Republicans -- chose a single candidate for the November presidential elections. The party candidate garnering the largest individual or block vote in each of the states of the country will be the official candidate of the party.
There are only two running for the Democrats, Clinton, wife of former President William Clinton, and Obama. The Republicans have three -- Senator John McCain, former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney and former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee. In Super Tuesday McCain was leading the other two. (SB)
