worldwide migration

Many Filipino workers and professionals have gone abroad to seek new identities, new roles, greener pastures and possible resettle in the countries that have received them. The number is getting bigger and bigger as if the Philippines is no longer a haven for Filipinos. Why is this so? Why is life in the Philippines not that atractive anymore for our compatriots?



I know that in Filipino families, there is so much pressure to be financial supportive, to provide one's economic share to fill up domestic needs, especially in the field of education. Couples have a hard time keeping their families above ground -- that is, eating three times a day, with a roof over their head, and the children going to school with complete uniform, allowances, and money for school supplies.



Yet what should be the government's duty is being thrown in as a burden to the family. For example, one child absented himself from his 3rd grade class because his mother was not able to give him an allowance of ten pesos or 50 cents. His mother had to go to a hearing at the department of labor to follow up a case against her former employer who had charged her with theft after her ten-year stint with them as laundrywoman- all around maid in their flower shop. Imagine a maid in a commercial company being paid a maid's salary. So in return, she countercharged the employer with illegal labor practices.



Now why is it a big deal that the child did not go to school? The mother spoke to me about how she rued his absence. Why because every time the child goes to school, he receives 6 kilos of rice FOR FREE. And 6 kilos means that the family will be able to eat properly for 6 meals. 5 days x 6 is 30 kilos which then eases up the mother's problems of making her family survive.



By the way, the father is in jail due to incest-rape and so the mother is now under the care of a non-government organization, Bantay Bata, receiving good counselling for the soul, for her to be strong in the face of the negative directions of her family life in the beginning.



Without a non-government organization helping the mother, her family would have broken up, her daughters sent to some convent to receive education and/or become nuns, or to some night clubs to serve as guest relations officers, about one or two steps to prostitution.



It is 2007 and the Philippines is still experiencing these problems