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Saturday, January 28, 2006
Roperos: Search for a better life
By Godofredo M. Roperos
Politics Also
Let’S face it, this republic we have can no more offer a better life to the average citizen than it can offer warmth to many a waif on a cold, windy night.
And so, like it or not, there is the reported 1,400 workers leaving the Visayas each month last year, and most possibly continuing still today, even increasing in number. However, rather than the phenomenon becoming a problem, it has instead grown as boon to the domestic economy.
Surely, our human export is turning out to be an economic reprieve not only for the workers’ kin left behind but also most decidedly for our country. The steady “migration” of our unemployed to various employment destinations abroad could be the redeeming factor of our unstable national economy.
There is really no doubting that the dollars our human exports are pouring into the country every month has not only strengthened the standing of the peso in the past many weeks but has also, somehow, ably held the economy on an even keel during the weeks following Christmas.
The nation’s OFWs tremendously increased their remittances to the republic last year by almost $2 billion as compared to the more than $7 billion of the preceding year. This was the result not of the increased earnings of the Filipinos already working abroad but of the increased in the number of Filipinos who found employment in other countries.
Indeed, in the past few weeks, a number of young men who managed to get employment abroad had come to me asking for assistance in getting their passport. Not having the money to get the passport through a travel agency which demand an average of P1,500 per applicant, they became part of the daily melee at the local passport office. In that way, they pay only P500 for the regular processing or P750 to fast track it via overtime work.
Workers given only two or three weeks to produce their travel documents have to seek special assistance from the DFA. It is to the credit of the local office headed by Angel Espiritu that a special passport processing has been devised for those who need their passports in a day or two. Such assistance has tremendously helped our OFWs, resulting most probably in encouraging workers to seek work in other countries.
What I am not sure of is whether to gloat over this apparent success of our human export or to mourn over the loss of human resource that otherwise we could have utilized to improve the national condition. The fact that many of our skilled workers or well-trained professionals are leaving the country is quite painful for us to contemplate, but then how much more painful is it to their loved ones?
“It is truly difficult to think of him leaving our children and me by ourselves in village,” said a 24 year-old mother of two. “But how can we get a better life for our children? We do not own the house we live in; we do not even have a lot to build one on. We want to work, but we cannot find jobs anywhere.”
Whatever it is, regardless of how we look at the reality of the continuing brain drain, the truth is the Philippine economy is also getting from our OFWs the financial shot in the arm that has kept our nation going despite its unstable political and economic situation. It is a sort of quid pro quo that somehow lends a happy balance to the prevailing national condition.
For Bisaya stories from Cebu. Click here. (January 28, 2006 issue)
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