Tuesday, October 10, 2006 Ong: Philippines in the eyes of a Filipino thinker By Ted Aldwin Ong
Part One
HIS extensive study of sociology and post-modern philosophy makes his analysis on Philippine society forceful, relevant, and often times wounding. Randy David recently visted Iloilo City as a resource person on the country's national situation by the Saint Vincent Ferrer Seminary.
I am captivated by his analysis on current events, which appears weekly in the opinion page of the Philippine Daily Inquirer. Reading his essays and opinions is like viewing an x-ray screen revealing what is in the interior to a seemingly harmless exterior.
As ever, Prof. David's analysis on Philippine society was illuminating. In his lecture, he viewed our country's present situation under the Arroyo regime as an opportunity for meaningful change. It is stability that many Filipinos aspire as an outcome of change. Undeniably, the restoration of democracy in 1986 and of the much recent upheavals of EDSA 2 and 3 failed to establish this collective aspiration.
Despite the meager budget that our government pours in for education, I agree with Prof. David that many Filipinos are much educated today. The sad state of Philippine education makes this claim quite perplexing. How a nation that wallows in poverty could produce educated citizens when its government failed big time in uplifting education from its miserable state?
One of the motivating factors that Prof. David mentioned is the phenomenon called Overseas Filipino Workers. Also referred to as the Filipino Diaspora, it is unparalled in history and this massive deployment of our workers all over the world is among the reason why we have a much educated Filipinos today. Having acknowledged the emerging role of OFW's in national life, government accorded them modern day hero status, notwithstanding its very little intervention in ensuring their safety while working in foreign land.
The absence of government intervention makes the lives of our OFW's doubly difficult which further expose them to various forms of life threatening situations under the hands of its employers, and sometimes, of their fellow Filipinos who have no qualms in exploiting their fellowmen in exchange for fast green bucks.
When our independent economists hoisted the red flag signifying an imminent economic meltdown at the onset of the Mrs. Arroyo's government take over in 2001, it is OFW remittances that salvaged her infant administration from eventual meltdown. Habitually, it is an OFW remittance that bails-out the Arroyo regime from economic collapse.
On the other hand, it is also of this reason that made Mrs. Arroyo tremendously dependent on debt assistance by foreign finance institutions. It is the continued inflow of OFW remittances that resuscitates Mrs. Arroyo's yawning economy and it is the same thing that cushions the impact of annual budget deficit.
All these became possible because there seems to be no existing place on earth without a Filipino or a Filipino worker. Our mountaineers even conqured the highest peak on earth, a possibility we did not imagine nor entertained before. It is also of this reason why different races on earth have previewed our culture as people and workers. According to Prof. David, this makes Filipinos a citizen of the world.
This massive deployment of Filipino workers depicts a story of employment gone scarce. Each year we are confronted by millions of new graduates that enter into the labor force further compounding our perennial problem of unemployment. Our government's inability to cope with this increasing demand for work drives many of our countrymen to swallow their insanity and seek employment in foreign shores. (To be continued. Send comments to tao.ssi@gmail.com)
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