Saturday, October 14, 2006 Ong: Philippines in the eyes of a Filipino thinker By Ted Aldwin Ong Misreadings
Last part
THE massive deployment of our nation's brightest and skillful Filipino workers only articulates our government's low regard of its biggest resource – our human resource. By permitting our workers to be exposed to different types of exploitation and abuse reveals two things. First, exploitation is a natural tendency of our government, and; second, our elite-driven political system is inclined to exploit workers.
The plight of our Overseas Filipino Workers (OFWs) in Lebanon in the hands of our officials is a direct reference of government's penchant to exploit its citizens working abroad.
When the Filipino workers in Lebanon demanded to mobilize the OFW trust fund in order to fast-track rescue operations, only then that our OFWs learned that it has been missing all these years. This "incident" sealed the early suspicion that the Arroyo administration mobilized these funds during her 2004 presidential stint.
It also affirmed public impression that President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo's flowery word of praise and gratitude on our OFWs rendered during her annual State of the Nation Address is a product of a well-choreographed theatrics. There was no sincerity behind government declarations that our OFWs are indeed considered modern day heroes.
What our government unveiled in the face of its crisis rescuers is its ineptitude to take care of the people that portray its role in nation building by taking care of its government.
As an empowered sector, I believe, that our OFWs must not allow a government to go into a spending spree out of the resources it regularly remits.
This is were I agree more with Professor Randy David, especially when he said our OFWs does not only sends back home monetary wealth, but together with it are new ideas and fresh knowledge of how government could effectively operate. This is the reason why they demand more accountability from our leaders.
How true. Our direct experience on the stability of mature societies all the more fuels our growing frustration as people on the incompetence of our leaders and of their indifference in providing the needs of its people.
In his speech on Diaspora, Globalization and Development, Prof David underscored that "the net effect of all this is that Filipinos living abroad have become the most demanding constituency of the Filipino nation. They know how the nation's economy has become very dependent on their remittances. Like Rizal's generation of émigrés, today's Overseas Filipino Workers know their power, even if they may still be groping for effective ways to use it. The structurally flawed Absentee Voting Law hardly affords them the occasion to use this power."
Furthermore, Professor David highlighted that "the OFW phenomenon is an impulse that is revolutionizing our way of life beyond our imagination. I cannot think of any other phenomenon that has shaken the deep formative contexts of our social life than the massive deployment of Filipino workers abroad. Its overall impact I believe, is, for example, pulling our political system toward greater democracy, greater transparency and governance, and more accountability in public life."
In our modern age, our people who are aware of how democracies work are continuously challenging the oppressive qualities of government including inequality and exploitation. But these qualities are once again re-emerging under the Arroyo regime. Qualities that for Mrs. Arroyo, contributes to the over all recipe of what she identify as a system that has long degenerated making victims out of her kinds.
This might be an excellent thesis coming from an economic scholar but it does not elevate this autocratic leader in the same pedestal from which a Socrates or a Nietzsche stands – a level that only Filipino thinkers like Randy David could possibly equal. (Comments to tao.ssi@gmail.com)
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