Tuesday, November 28, 2006 Echaves: Keeping the hope By Lelani P. Cchaves
Meet Ellen, a hard-working Boholana residing in Mandaue City. She lives just outside our subdivision and so, when I need an extra hand, she’d make herself available.
That’s how it went for years, until Ellen got a regular job as seamstress at a furniture company. Ten years, a marriage, four children and a company downsizing after, Belen is seriously thinking of bringing her family to Bohol.
There she has a small concrete house, can depend on a regular harvest of rice, can plant vegetables and fruits, and never fear of her family starving . City life has taught her harsh realities. Being hard-working is not enough, because regular employment status is no antidote to downsizing. Separation pay looks deceptive on the pay slip. She agonizes choosing between settling the power bill or the rental. But she needs the refrigerator for her small iced water business. So, though she’s already three months behind in her rental, she hopes her landlady can wait further.
It was much better when her neighbor’s pool and billiard customers regularly bought her barbecue, “puso” and soft drinks. But that business has folded up since then. And so, her family feeds daily on "kamunggay" soup with a minimal touch of “ginamos.” When her children yearn for meat, she beats an egg to mix in the “kamunggay” soup. Fortunately, this suffices her family’s yearning.
It would’ve been better, too, if her husband drove the tricycle daily. But he shares it with two other drivers who have families, too. So, bringing food to the table is presently Ellen’s job, for now. As it is for other women in her neighborhood.
Occasionally, Ellen sews curtains, tablecloths, throw pillow cases and sofa covers, as well as string shellcraft pieces of costume jewelry. Her neighbor Carla, herself a mother of five, works as a temporary helper for a subdivision’s residents on a rotation basis. She goes home at six in the evening to prepare dinner for the family, and attends to the household chores. At 8 p.m., she leaves for Carbon market to buy the ingredients for her daily business of “puto,” “balanghoy,” and “biko.” She’s home by 10, wakes up at 3 a.m. to cook.
At 6 a.m., her neighbor picks up her products and sells them door to door. For her tedious work, Carla gets a daily income of P150.
Then there’s Pina, Vising, Salud and a host of others, with the same profile: an average of five to seven children, unemployed husband and older children not helping out in the household chores. These women have the same look, too — overworked, tired, sad and trapped.
If they had the chance, they’d be among the four out of every 10 Filipinos who’d want to work abroad as overseas Filipino workers. They’d be lonely and homesick, but at least they could give a better life to their families, they say.
Here, they’re part of the 11.7 percent (4.4 million Filipinos) who are unemployed. No wonder we don’t see a clamor from the 1.3 million Filipino overseas contract workers from Kuwait and other Gulf countries to come back to their native land. No jobs await them here, so they’d rather stay put and take their chances where they are. It’s a story true, too, in Lebanon despite the threat of war.
Besides, competition for available jobs here would also come from the underemployed, those who desire additional hours of work. That’s 7.8 million Filipinos as of July 2006, according to the National Statistics Office.
Many more will leave our country. IBON Foundation research head Sonny Africa estimated that consistently from 2001 to 2005, a total of 900,000 Filipinos left yearly for employment abroad.
Separated family members being inevitable trade-off, it’s fortunate that the Church-based Dilaab Movement set up the Integrated Family Relations Enhancement Program. Its goal: To assist would-be migrants and their families in their psycho-spiritual needs, and strengthen family ties.
