[R-G] Economics, Migration & Social Change in the Philippines

[Anthony Fenton]

The Dominion: Battle of the Ballot Box Part II
Economics, Migration & Social Change in the Philippines

by Stefan Christoff

http://www.dominionpaper.ca/articles/1342

This is the second in a series of three articles...


Violence surrounding the Philippine elections, including multiple  
assassinations and targeted bombings, has raised concerns  
internationally. Controversy over the mid-term elections of 2007,  
however, remains but one element of a broader political crisis facing  
the poverty-stricken island nation.

"At a time of immense political tension, of continuing economic  
unevenness and of widening social inequality, one thing has become  
clear: the country direly needs a new plan," Jeffery Roden wrote in  
Philippine Collegian, an independent student newspaper distributed at  
the University of the Philippines.

"For even if we elect the most intelligent leaders, if the hearts of  
the people are fixated with dreams of going to distant lands we will  
still not attain progress," Filipino student Roden wrote in an  
editorial published just prior to the May 2007 mid-term elections.

Government statistics from the Philippines indicate that hundreds of  
thousands of Filipinos depart each year to work abroad, often in  
substandard conditions in the Middle East, Asia and North America.  
Indeed, government policy actively encourages the export of Filipino  
workers.

In Canada, thousands of overseas workers arrive each year from the  
Philippines through the Live-In Caregiver Program, a joint program  
between the governments of Canada and the Philippines. In cities  
across Canada, labourers from the Philippines, mainly women, toil  
without permanent legal status in Canada, in many cases for years at  
a time. Multiple cases of physical and psychological abuse of  
Filipino workers in Canada under the Live-In Caregiver Program have  
been documented and publicized by the Immigrant Workers Center in  
Montreal.

In 2007, the Canadian government announced an expansion of  
international labour agreements with the government in Manila. "To  
make matters worse, Canada, as part of extending its temporary  
workers program, is making deals with the Philippines to contract  
hundreds of Filipino migrant labourers to work in the oil sands of  
Alberta," Joey Calugay of the Centre for Philippine Concerns told a  
Montreal community forum in August 2007.

Today, it is commonly estimated that thousands of Filipinos leave the  
Philippines on a daily basis, an exodus that has been linked to the  
country's ongoing socio-economic crisis. According to the Philippine  
Central Bank, remittances from overseas Filipino labourers amounted  
to $12 billion US in 2006. "This global trade in people is the  
highest income-generating business of the Philippine government,"  
Calugay added. "[It is] keeping its economy afloat and helping to pay  
for the more than $55 billion in foreign debt."

People of all stripes in the Philippines openly discuss the need for  
profound political change in the country; change that extends beyond  
the government and elections. "The problem with the country's  
politics is that it remains fundamentally elite-dominated and so  
overwhelmingly about governance for and by the elite," wrote Sonny  
Africa in a post-election editorial. Africa is with the IBON  
Foundation, a progressive social research organization based in Manila.

"This is a problem that dates back from the birth of the Philippine  
Republic at the turn of the century, continued through the US  
colonial period, and has alarmingly persisted under post-war  
neocolonialism until today," he wrote.

The economic crisis continues to plague the majority of the  
population--estimated at slightly below 90 million --creating severe  
political unrest and fueling support for leftist political parties  
and guerrilla movements. According to a 2007 World Bank study, more  
than 15 million Filipinos survive on less than one US dollar a day,  
while it is estimated by the UN that 40 per cent of Filipinos live on  
less than two US dollars per day.

"In the Philippines, we have an economic and political system which  
ensures that when Filipinos are working, whether in the fields, or in  
the offices, or in factories, that their labour doesn't benefit them  
directly because the majority doesn't control the national economic  
resources, including land, economic capital or industrial machinery,"  
Africa explained in an interview in Manila.

Since taking office in 2001, President Arroyo has vigorously pursued  
an economic program centred on foreign investment, privatization of  
state institutions and World Bank-backed economic reforms.

"The Philippines is fashioning a development agenda based on an  
economy competitive in the 21st century," Arroyo said in a 2002  
address at a Manila-based symposium on the Free Trade Area (AFTA) of  
the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), which includes 10  
East-Asian nations. "Our reforms aim to create a domestic environment  
that will enable us to reap the benefit of global economic  
integration," said Arroyo.

In the Philippine president's July 2007 State of the Nation address,  
Arroyo said that current governmental economic policies would lead  
"the Philippines to become a developed country in 20 years." But a  
recent report from Manila's IBON Foundation stated that "the  
situation of Filipinos is actually sinking deeper into Third World  
status, deteriorating in a way that hits the poorest majority the most."

The shaky national economy is rooted in extraordinary foreign  
investment laws, which allow certain economic sectors to be 100 per  
cent internationally owned while simultaneously allowing 100 per cent  
of corporate profits from foreign-owned industries or companies to be  
channeled outside of the country. A succession of US-backed  
governments constructed current national economic policy, a polar- 
opposite to the nationalist economic programs proposed by Philippine  
progressive movements.

"Today, when the majority of Filipinos work, the profits of their  
labour go to local economic elites," said Africa, "including factory  
owners and feudal landlords or in the worst scenario, foreign  
business based in the Philippines."

"The majority of Filipinos continue to suffer in poverty."