Overseas
Filipino Workers, Labor Circulation in Southeast Asia, and the (Mis)management
of Overseas Migration Programs
Odine de
Guzman
In recent years overseas contract work has become the Philippines’ prime export commodity. In the year following the 1997 Asian financial crisis, overseas Filipino worker (OFW) remittances amounted to US$7 billion. (DER-BSP, Table 11. OFW Remittances By Country and By Type of Worker.) OFW remittance is such a vital source of revenue that since the mid-1980s the government has lauded these workers as the country’s “new economic heroes” or mga bagong bayani. This essay highlights the growth of women’s participation in the ongoing Filipino labor diaspora and underscores the government’s active promotion of overseas labor migration. It discusses Filipino international migration within the context of labor circulation in Southeast Asia, comparing the experience of overseas domestic work of Filipinos and Indonesians. Finally, this essay examines two forms of involvement by the international community in current women’s migration issues – the promotion of international protections and research on different aspects of women’s migration – and includes a current reference list on the issue.
The bagong bayani are a diverse group. They include emigrants and contract workers, both of whom may be documented or undocumented. (NGO statistics categorize these two groups as overseas Filipinos and overseas Filipino workers.) As of 2001, overseas Filipinos numbered 2.74 million and OFWs 4.67 million, of whom 3.05 million are documented and 1.62 million undocumented (Kanlungan Center, citing the Commission on Filipinos Overseas, Department of Foreign Affairs). OFWs are further statistically classified as sea-based workers, who are largely male, and land-based workers, who are the focus of this essay.
Initially, the workers were called
OCWs, or overseas contract workers, a term which is descriptive of a temporary and contractual employment status – usually fixed terms of six months to two years. Moreover,
the term bespeaks the workers’ lack of physical and social mobility in
the receiving country, which is restricted by the terms of their contract.
Because of the growing prominence of overseas work and of the sense of being
neither here nor there implied by “OCW,” the term has fallen out of favor in both government and media parlance. “OFW” – with the insertion of “Filipino” adding a national projection as befits new
heroes – has become the preferred version.
Being heroes, however, does not mean the government can guarantee OFW welfare, despite remittances that annually amount to billions of dollars. News reports abound of victims of abuse and of the death of overseas contract workers since the early 1990s.[1] These include Singapore’s much talked-about 1995 execution of Flor Contemplacion, who was convicted of killing a Filipina domestic worker and her Singaporean ward; the unresolved case of Mary Jane Ramos;[2] the case of Sarah Jane Dematera, on death row for 11 years (Kanlungan Center); and numerous others that remain unreported.
These news reports sketch the current face
of Philippine overseas labor migration. It is increasingly female and
services-oriented. In 1992, of the total deployed, land-based, newly
hired OFWs, 50 percent were female. This increased to 58 percent in 1995, 64 percent in 1999, and
72 percent in 2001.
The Philippine Overseas Employment
Administration (POEA) lists eight skill categories. In the period 1992 to 2001, the skill category “service workers” comprised an
average 35 percent of the total number of deployed newly hired, land-based
workers (POEA InfoCenter; NSCB). In that ten-year period, “service workers” was consistently
one of the top two in terms of newly hired workers deployed. It alternated with the
category “production workers,” which was the top occupation of overseas
land-based migrants in the 1970s
and which was the top occupation of deployed workers in
the years 1994, 1996, and
1998-2000. The third highest category in the same
period was “professional and technical workers,” which overtook “production
workers” in 2001 (POEA InfoCenter).
The stereotypical gender division of labor
is replicated in these skill categories. Production workers are predominantly
male at 71 percent of the newly deployed in 2002, while service workers and professional and
technical workers, largely nurses and overseas performing artists, are mostly female. (Dancers and
musicians made up 72
percent of this skill category in 2000; 99.5 percent of
all deployed entertainers went to Japan [POEA Annual Report
2000]. In 2002, 85
percent of deployed newly hired
“professional and technical workers” were female.)
Fifty-two percent of the women deployed in 1992 were service workers; 59 percent in 1995; and 47 percent in 2000 (POEA 2002). From 1992 to 2001, women comprised an average 89 percent of deployed newly hired service workers. They comprised 92 percent of deployed newly hired service workers in 2000, 91 percent in 2001, and 90 percent in 2002.
The
feminization of Philippine overseas labor migration, which had been
male-dominated until the 1980s, belies the failure of women’s empowerment in society. The
increasing out-migration of women indicates a decline, or continuing
limitation, in the share of work
available to women in the production process; employment opportunities remain
restricted and income insufficient. The majority of female OFWs are still in “traditional”
reproductive work such as domestic work and cultural entertainment, health care and nursing, where the pay is low and the
nature of the work involves a
higher exposure to
physical, sexual and other abuse. This in turn
underscores the international division of labor, in which the Third World, or
the South, does the labor-intensive and lower-paid work. It also demonstrates a persistent
gendered division of labor at the global level, with the South taking on the menial aspects of
reproductive work, which are thereby “feminized,” secondary, subservient, and inferior to the “masculine,” dominant North.
The
State and Overseas Labor Migration[3]
Migration is not wholly a personal decision motivated by desire for capitalist accumulation, but also reflects the lack of development policies on the part of the government and the lack of satisfactory living and employment opportunities within the home country. Feminist activist Wilhelmina S. Orozco asserted , as early as 1985, that the government had deliberately promoted labor migration as a solution to unemployment and growing national accounts deficits. Subsequently, sociologists Graziano Battistella and Anthony Paganoni (1992, 1996), Maruja M.B. Asis (1992), Joaquin Gonzalez III (1996, 1998), and urban planner Benjamin Cariño (1995) have examined the policies and directives of government administrations since Marcos, demonstrating how the government actively promotes labor migration with provision for the welfare of the migrants often an afterthought.
The administration of Ferdinand E. Marcos was blatant in its desire to use labor migration as a solution to the nation’s economic problems. The government was assertive in promoting and maintaining its warm body export. The Labor Code of 1974 formalized the Philippine labor migration program and had as its main goal the promotion of overseas contract work in order for government to reap the economic benefits of lower unemployment and workers’ remittances. In 1982, the Central Bank, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and Ministry of Labor and Employment made the remittance of 50 to 70 percent of workers’ salaries mandatory through Executive Order 857. Sanctions such as the non-renewal of passports or disapproval of new contracts were imposed on those who did not comply. Executive Order 857 was so unpopular with contract workers that government abandoned it for more relaxed measures, like incentives to remitting migrants, the Suwerte sa Bangko program, the Balikbayan program, and the Overseas Workers Welfare Administration (OWWA) remittance assistance program (Gonzalez III, 1996).
Government policies and regulations on labor migration up to this period were but slight refinements of the Commonwealth government’s laws from 1915 to 1933, all of which focused on the economic benefits the United States government could gain from this enterprise. The Labor Code of 1974 only made the provisions in the previous laws more organized and economically viable.
In the late 1980s, the abuse of women migrant workers started to be widely publicized. Following a temporary moratorium on the deployment of Filipino entertainers to Japan, the administration of Corazon C. Aquino temporarily banned the deployment of domestic workers on January 20, 1988. The ban was meant to protect Filipino women migrants from being abused and exploited in the foreign countries where they worked.[4] But as NGO activists contended, no matter how well intentioned, the ban was wrong policy: because of it, many more women would leave the country illegally and would “no longer be entitled to government protection, thus putting [them] completely at the mercy of [their] employers” (Ocampo 1988, 5). Another issue was the ban’s infringement of the constitutional rights of workers to travel and find gainful employment. It was meant as leverage for negotiating better terms and conditions for the workers, but as migrant activists also pointed out, it was not binding on receiving states, who could simply turn to other developing countries for cheap labor.
NGOs proposed more concrete measures to address the abuse of overseas workers. They demended that government “put more teeth in the country’s labor laws to guarantee [the] protection of overseas domestic [workers],” compel labor attaches to do their jobs, and “enforce government-to-government negotiations for a fair deal for Filipino domestic [workers]” (C.D. Nagot, Gabriela spokesperson, quoted in Delos Santos 1988, 1; M.L. Alcid 1988; I.L. Laguindam 1988). In a press statement, Filipina domestic helpers in Hong Kong proposed the following (The United Filipinos Against the Ban, 1988):
Subsequently, the Aquino administration
lifted the ban for selected countries, Middle Eastern countries being the
last. Maruja M.B. Asis (1992) noted that although the issue of remittances was
important to the government, a gradual shift toward welfare and protection was
noticeable among the executive orders and legislation passed during Aquino’s term.
Among the most publicized
of Aquino’s presidential actions was
Proclamation No. 276, signed on June 21, 1988, which declared December “The
Month of Overseas Filipinos.” In recognition of their contribution to the
national economy, President Aquino called overseas contract workers the new heroes of the country or the new
economic heroes. (Another version is
“modern-day heroes,” which gained currency in the latter part of the 1990s, which Hong Kong activists
counter with “modern-day slaves.”)
The epithet could not protect the migrant
workers from being abused overseas. After a couple of highly publicized deaths of
Filipina domestic workers abroad, the succeeding administration of Fidel V.
Ramos tried to put a hold on the “new hero” syndrome. In 1996, RA 8042, the
Migrant Workers and Overseas Filipinos Act of 1995, was implemented to
show government support for the new Philippine heroes following national
outrage at the execution of Flor Contemplacion. At the same time,
government publicists floated the idea that Filipinos need not go abroad to get
good employment.
Ramos promised economic prosperity through his Philippines 2000 program, which aimed to achieve NIC-hood (newly industrialized country status) by the year 2000. Nevertheless, remittances from overseas Filipino workers were still one of the bigger sources of government revenue.
At the end of 2000, Joseph Estrada, the thirteenth President
of the Republic, called upon OFWs to be patient and continue supporting his
beleaguered administration. Estrada said “the OFWs should continually remit
their hard-earned dollars here to help prop up the heavily battered economy and
to help in praying for his critics and political opponents” (Manila Bulletin,
December 10, 2000). Later, President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, in her state visit to Singapore
in 2001, was quoted as saying: “The Philippine
economy will be, for the foreseeable future, heavily dependent still on overseas
workers’ remittances” (Agence France Presse, 2001). In a keynote speech to welcoming Filipinos in Kuala Lumpur during her
state visit to Malaysia in the same month, the President proffered a new name for the
economic heroes: OFI, or overseas Filipino investors. In this telling, overseas Filipino workers “invested” their talents and energy in
the receiving country.[5]
One aggressive “investment” strategy the
government reportedly adopted was to deploy “at least one million people” abroad annually, or 2740 persons per day (Kanlungan Center 2001). The NGO further quotes the President as
saying: “Jobs here are difficult to find and we are depending on people outside
the country. If you can find work there and send money to your relatives here,
then perhaps you should stay there” (Philippine Daily Inquirer, July 28,
2001). In keeping with the spirit of the free market espoused by
Macapagal-Arroyo, the implementation period of the controversial sections of RA
8042, which provide for the deregulation of overseas employment and the gradual
phase-out of the POEA, fell during this administration.
Part VII of RA 8042 reads:
Like her predecessors, Macapagal-Arroyo
could only enjoin OFWs to “stay put abroad and continue to send their dollar
remittances until the Philippine economy stabilizes” (Del Callar, 2001). Yet at the
same, the government officially maintained that overseas employment was not a
policy: “In an August 2001 meeting with a delegation of overseas Filipinos
advocating for their right to vote, Labor Secretary Patricia Santo Tomas
objected to any reference to ‘export of labor,’ saying that people go abroad
on their own volition” (Kanlungan Center 2001; underscoring mine).
The new heroes of the country, ang mga bagong bayani, continue to hold a special place in government rhetoric.
Filipinos are not the only border-crossing labor migrants in contemporary Southeast Asia, though they are probably the most “encouraged” by their government and have the most organized way of dealing with the move (Azizah Kassim 1998; Jones 2000). One major receiving country is Malaysia, with about 743,641 legal foreign workers from ten countries, including the Philippines, Thailand, and Indonesia, and an estimated one million undocumented foreign workers. Alien labor accounted for about 20 percent of Malaysia’s workforce of about 8 million and about 10 percent of its population of about 20 million in 1995 (Azizah Kassim 1998). Sidney Jones asserts that “Malaysia was the largest employer of foreign labor in Asia in 1999” (Jones 2000, 3). But Malaysia also sends labor to neighboring countries such as Singapore – where 200,000 Malaysians reportedly work (Jones 2000), some of them illegally – Brunei, Taiwan, and Japan. Azizah Kassim (1998) explains that Malaysian workers in these countries are found in domestic services, manufacturing, construction, and services, the sectors occupied by foreign migrant workers in Malaysia. That is, semi-skilled Malaysian workers take up jobs abroad that they refuse in their home country because of relatively higher pay, while some professionals opt to stay in Brunei for the tax breaks the Sultanate offers.
Thailand also sends workers
abroad, while receiving a number of illegal workers, in this case from
Myanmar and Southern China. They too work in the sectors occupied by Thais in
foreign countries (Azizah Kassim 1998); because of their irregular status wages
are often determined by what employers can afford and sometimes by the
generosity of employers. Estimates of migrants in 1998 put the number
at one million, with two-thirds likely to be irregular (Jones 2000).
Thailand has exported labor to countries in the Middle East (mostly Saudi Arabia), Europe, the Asia-Pacific region, and the United States since the 1980s. Political instability in the Middle East, however, shifted Thai labor movement toward Japan, Hong Kong, and Singapore. By the 1990s, Thai overseas labor was predominantly located in the Asia-Pacific region. In 1993, 85 percent of total overseas Thai labor was in the region, with 32 percent based in Singapore, Brunei, and Malaysia. The major destinations of 191,735 deployed Thai labor migrants in 1998 were Taiwan, Singapore, Brunei, Japan, Israel, Malaysia, and Hong Kong (Battistella 2000, 13).
As of 2000, Singapore was home to approximately 530,000 foreign workers. Officially, the workers could be recruited from Malaysia, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Macao, South Korea, Thailand, India, Bangladesh, and the Philippines. The largest group of foreign workers in the country was Malaysian, while the second largest was Filipino; there were also reports of the presence of a considerable number of Indonesians and mainland Chinese. Foreign workers occupied the following sectors: domestic services, which registered approximately 100,000 workers; construction (200,000); shipyards; services; and hotels. Of the 530,000, around 80,000 were highly skilled and worked in finance, business, commerce, and manufacturing (Battistella 2000, 12).
Brunei had been importing labor since the mid-1980s; the foreign workers based in Brunei were from Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, and the Philippines as well as from India and Bangladesh. In 1988, the largest foreign worker group was Malaysian with 18,418 workers, followed by Thai at 9,941 workers (Azizah Kassim 1998). Currently, Brunei’s private citizens are “dependent on migrant workers for 74% of [their] manpower” [needs] (Jayasankaran 2003).
Like its Philippine counterpart, the Indonesian government under the New Order started “sending migrant workers overseas as one of strategic ways to overcome unemployment and to increase foreign exchange” (Eko Susi Rosdianasari 2000, 93). From the late 1960s to the early 1990s, Indonesia processed over 700,000 overseas workers’ papers, the majority of which (like Thais and Filipinos in the 1970s and 80s) were for the Middle East. Twenty-four percent went to Malaysia and Singapore; however, this number did not include the over half a million believed to be in Malaysia undocumented (Azizah Kassim 1998). By in 1997, as noted by Graeme Hugo, the Malaysian Immigration Department was impelled to raise estimates of Indonesian workers residing in the country to 1.9 million after nearly 1.4 million resident Indonesians voted in the 1997 Indonesian elections. (The year before, about 300,000 undocumented workers had been legalized.) This estimate was far greater than most others – for example, those based on a 1993 amnesty in Peninsular Malaysia when half a million Indonesians came forward (Hugo 2002). Overall figures as of 1999 indicated an estimated three million workers without “any formal document” – most from East and Central Java, East and West Nusa Tenggara, and South Sulawesi – while statistics from 1994 to 1999 showed 1,461,236 labor migrants leaving Indonesia each year.
A projected 36 million Indonesians were expected to be affected by underemployment toward the end of 2000 when a 2 percent (per annum) economic growth rate was expected.[6] Eko Susi Rosdianasari (2000) asserted that the Workers Department therefore aimed to deploy 2.8 million workers between 1999 and 2004, even as laws and government policies continued to lack measures to protect migrant workers. The government expected a return of up to US$12 billion in remittances from this enterprise.[7]
Indonesians’ top countries of destination are Saudi Arabia and Malaysia,
followed by Singapore, Taiwan, Japan, Hong Kong, Brunei, and Korea. Indonesian
labor migrants are mostly found in domestic work and in factories, industries,
hotels, hospitals, and plantations, while a hefty 70 percent of all
overseas Indonesian migrant workers are women.
While the majority of
Filipino and Indonesian women labor migrants end up in domestic work, it is
considered to be risky and sending governments do not have strong bilateral
agreements with receiving states on the protection of these women. As noted
earlier, numerous Filipino women have met misfortune in varying degrees in
their quest for economic upliftment as overseas domestic workers. Media reports
in Indonesia have likewise exposed the abuses experienced by women migrant
workers, many of whom are domestic workers. The abuse begins in the home
country, at the hands of a tekong (middleman/illegal
recruiter) and calo (small company or individual recruiter), and
continues in the employer’s home in the form of non-payment of wages, long working hours,
subjection to cultural taboos, or physical and sexual abuse. The protection of
domestic workers is made difficult because of the location of the work in the
employer’s private residence, where the lines between the employee’s work and
private time/space are blurred.
It is made even more difficult in Indonesia when “maids are not [considered] workers” and “continue to be regarded as the private property of households” (Ati Nurbati 2000, 91, 90). Because of the general assumption that domestic workers have low education and that “they sleep and eat for free,” their salaries are low and are not governed by minimum wage laws. In fact, “[a]s ‘part of the family,’ a maid’s wage is not public business” (ibid., 91). The notion that a domestic worker’s welfare, including salary, lies beyond the scope of public business partly originates from the capitalist division of labor into the productive and reproductive spheres, where the notion of work is a “production process that contributes to capitalist accumulation and exchange” (Eviota 1992, cited in Cheng 1996, 110). In contrast, domestic work falls within the “process of reproduction, essential to the survival of the family and society, [but] does not directly lead to the process of accumulation and exchange;” thus, it is not customarily considered work, thereby, it converts the status of domestic workers into non-workers (ibid). To a certain extent, women domestic workers fall within the ambit of the private on account of gender relations in society. Patriarchal societies deem women’s proper place to be the home, while men rightly belong in the public arena.
A review of most government policies and legislation on the protection of migrant workers shows that domestic workers’ specific labor problems are not factored in at all (Palma-Beltran and Javate-de Dios 1992; Heyzer 1994, also cited in Jones 2000; Goldberg 1996). Even so, many women leave because domestic workers at home earn only 15-20% of what they can earn abroad. In real terms, however, the enormous recruitment fees and other travel expenses increase their family’s living expenses, sometimes exponentially.
Indonesian domestic workers in Malaysia are
offered between US$90 and US$150 per month with recruitment fees to be deducted from the first
three months. But there
are numerous reports of more deductions than agreed
upon and failure to
receive full or any salary at all (Jones 2000; Ati Nurbaiti
2000; Eko Susi Rosdianasari 2000). Yet for US$100 a month, many a rural woman
would take the risk of illegal detention, torture, and even death,
strengthened by the hope that one’s own fate will be different. (The bulk of reported
abuse of Indonesian domestic workers is in Saudi Arabia, with many physically and sexually
abused.)
Aside from the often-marginalized position of migrant workers in receiving countries, workers also fall into hierarchical categories within migrant groups, which can be imposed upon them by local society. In the hierarchy of overseas domestic workers in Malaysia, for example, Filipinos are on the top rung. Indonesians fall into a lower salary range because they usually have a lower level of education, are not yet knowledgeable about the use of “modern” household equipment, and are not proficient in the English language.
But regardless of foreign language proficiency, overseas domestic workers are almost always unjustly considered “potential prostitutes” by local officials and laypeople who tend to prejudge foreign workers (Jones 2000, 65); in fact, even in their home country, unmarried Indonesian women leaving to work as domestic workers are imagined as “social misfits who could not get husbands or who had personal problems at home that prompted them to leave” (64-65), despite the financial support they send back. Of course, recruited domestic workers every now and then unwittingly do end up in prostitution. The multi-million dollar business of trafficking in women thrives upon deceiving, or convincing, unsuspecting women and families about the rewards of overseas work. Once the migration process has started, where a worker actually ends up is determined by the recruiters and their allies. Sydney Jones asserts that in the case of Indonesian women, the high demand for overseas domestic workers in Malaysia facilitates the recruitment of women legal and illegal recruiters conscripting women for housework or for the brothel (65).
The incessant circulation of labor within
the region attests to
the interconnectedness of economies and unevenness of economic
development among the neighboring countries, but it also intimates
contiguous human relationships, harsh or otherwise. At the international level,
the term “migrant” covers a broad spectrum of people on the move. It is
commonly used to refer to people who journey to another country in search of
work. The International Labour Organization (ILO) defines migrants “as those who
migrate from one country to another for the purpose of being employed there,”
which assumes that they are legally permitted to stay and work in the receiving country and implies
that their movement is voluntary. However, migrants and migrant workers do not
always migrate by choice. As the experience of many Asian women shows, a large
number of migrant workers are forced by socio-economic circumstance or by recruiters or
deceived into believing that they will be legally employed, but end up without legal
status in receiving countries. The Beijing Platform for Action recognizes the
following categories of migrant women: refugees, the internally displaced,
migrant workers, immigrants, and victims of trafficking.
International
Covenants seek to address the various injustices experienced by people in
general. Typically, they are non-binding yet important in that states are
encouraged, sometimes pressured,
to act in accordance with international standards and the terms of the
conventions. Among the United Nations documents that have significant language
for the protection of migrant women are the following:
The Vienna
Declaration and Program of Action, 1993, the first international document to “raise
women’s rights as human rights and treat them as warranting equal recognition
and treatment as those rights more traditionally defined” (Goldberg 1996, 176).
The
Vienna Declaration asserts
women’s rights as “an inalienable, integral and indivisible part of universal
human rights.” Part I, par. 24 of
the document recognizes migrant workers as “being among ‘those persons
belonging to groups which have been rendered vulnerable’ and demands that
‘great importance must be given to the promotion and protection of [their]
human rights’” (177).
The Copenhagen
Declaration and Program of Action, 1995. Pamela Goldberg (1996) asserts that
while the Copenhagen Declaration is replete with language addressing women’s
issues, it does not particularly address the needs of migrant workers and has
“nothing concerning migrant women specifically” (ibid). The document does refer
throughout to “vulnerable and
disadvantaged groups,”
among
which women migrants and
women migrant workers have been “consistently identified in other documents,”
which makes the phrase “vulnerable and disadvantaged groups” applicable to
migrant women. The brief attention given to migrant workers “stresses the need
for intensified international cooperation and national attention to the
situation of migrant workers and their families (par. 63) and calls for the
equitable treatment and integration of documented migrants, particularly,
migrant workers and their families (par. 78)” (ibid).
The Cairo
Declaration, which
resulted from the International Conference on Population and Development in
1994, strongly promotes the protection of women and migrant women. Principle 12
states: “Countries should guarantee to all migrants basic human rights as
included in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights”; chapter 10 deals entirely with the issue of
international migration. Additionally, the document promotes issues of gender
equality, equity,
and empowerment of women, including the directive for states “to pay special
attention to protection of the rights and safety of those who suffer from
[degrading practices, such as trafficking in women, adolescents and children
and exploitation through prostitution], crimes and those in potentially
exploitable situations, such as migrant women… (par. 4.9).” Parts of chapter 10 attend to the particular issues of
refugees and undocumented migrants, who were first distinguished from
documented or regular migrants in the Copenhagen Declaration. The Cairo
Declaration urges states to “cooperate in… safeguarding the basic human rights of
undocumented migrants” (par. 10.17). Moreover, it advocates that governments
“adopt effective sanctions against those who organize undocumented
migration, exploit undocumented migrants or engage in trafficking in
undocumented migrants, especially those who engage in any form of international
traffic in women, youth and children. Governments of countries in origin, where
the activities of agents or other intermediaries in the migration process are
legal, should regulate such activities in order to prevent abuses, especially
exploitation, prostitution and coercive adoption (par. 10.18).”
The Beijing Declaration and Platform for
Action, from the United Nations Fourth World
Conference on Women, held in Beijing in September 1995, is by far the most
cognizant among UN conference documents of the issues of concern to women migrants
(ibid). In addition to ensuring the rights of women and the girl
child, the Beijing Declaration articulates a commitment to “address the
structural causes of poverty through changes in economic structures, ensuring
equal access for all women, including those in rural areas, as vital
development agents, to productive resources, opportunities and public services”
(par. 26). Goldberg cites the articles in the Declaration that commit to
safeguarding the rights of women migrant workers thus:
“In its section on Violence Against Women (par. 112-130), the
Platform for Action recognizes ‘[s]ome groups of women, such as… women
migrants, including women migrant workers’ as being ‘particularly
vulnerable to violence’ (par. 116). It calls for states to ‘[p]rovide women who
are subjected to violence with access to the mechanism of justice, and, as
provided for by the national legislation, to just and effective remedies for
the harms they have suffered and inform women of their rights in seeking
redress through such mechanisms’ (par. 124 (h)); and urges states to ‘[t]ake
special measures to eliminate violence against women, particularly those in
vulnerable situations… including enforcing any existing legislation and developing, as
appropriate, new legislation for women migrant workers in both sending and
receiving countries’ (par.126 (d)).”
Moreover, the Platform for Action
recognizes the contributions of migrant workers, including domestic workers, as it
strongly recommends the enactment or reformation of national policies to
guarantee the protection of migrants’ human rights, including protection from
abuse and exploitation by their guarantor (par. 148 (h); ibid).
International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of their Families, one of the few legally binding documents pertaining to international labor migration. The Convention required more than a decade of lobbying before it was ratified as an instrument of international law. Adopted by the UN General Assembly in December 1990, it only came into force on July 1, 2003, with the ratification of the Convention by Guatemala, the twentieth ratifying state. The slow ratification of the Convention illustrated the rather ambiguous position of many states regarding the protection of migrants. Although governments acknowledged the need to protect migrants, binding themselves to such protection was a different matter. It was a combination of non-government organizations and civil society groups worldwide, along with the UN agencies, which tirelessly lobbied their governments to ratify the document. Nonetheless, the Convention demonstrates the international community’s recognition of and respect for the human rights of migrants and their families; more important, it declares the international community’s commitment to the comprehensive protection of the rights of these people in the economic, social, political, and cultural dimensions of relocation and reintegration.
Lori Brunio, chairperson of the Coalition
for Migrants' Rights (CMR) in Hong Kong, has this to say about the ratification
of the Convention: “For foreign domestic workers like us, having an
international treaty like the MWC that clearly recognizes and protects our
rights affirms our dignity and gives us more courage to fight against abuses,
violence and discrimination. Even if the place where we work (Hong Kong) has
not ratified, the MWC gives us indisputable basis for saying that we should be
respected and treated fairly as human beings” (Asian Migrant Center
2003).
Other international documents that can be
cited to ensure the protection of the human rights of women and migrant workers
are: the Universal Declaration of Human Rights; the International
Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights; the International
Covenant on Civil and Political Rights; the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of
Discrimination Against Women; the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of
Racial Discrimination;
and the Convention on the Rights of the Child (The
People’s Movement for Human Rights Education 2003).
The International Labour Organization,
which works “on the principle that all human beings irrespective of race,
creed, or sex, have the right to pursue both their material well-being and
their spiritual development in conditions of freedom, dignity, economic
security, and equal opportunity,” (quoted in Goldberg 1996, 175) has since 1949
approved conventions that address issues related to women workers and migrant
workers. Among them are: the Migration for Employment Convention (Revised),
1949 (No. 97); the Migrant Workers (Supplementary Provisions) Conventions,
1975 (No. 143); the Forced Labour Convention (No. 29); the Freedom of
Association and Protection of the Right to Organize Convention (No. 87); the
Equal Remuneration Convention (No. 100); the Discrimination (Employment and
Occupation) Convention (No. 111); the Minimum Age Convention (No.38); and the
Resolution concerning the Conditions of Employment of Domestic Workers, 1965
(Goldberg 1996; The People’s Movement for Human Rights Education 2003).
Although these international covenants are not always legally binding and are not solutions in themselves to the issues of migrants and labor migration, they are important nonetheless in compelling both sending and receiving states to ensure the protection of migrants and to adhere to a set of laws that are accepted to the international community.
Western academic interest in the phenomenon of female labor migration from the Philippines may be seen in various essays published in different academic journals based in North America. One fine example is the volume edited by Filomeno V. Aguilar, Jr., and published in the Philippines by the Philippine Social Science Council. Filipinos in Global Migrations: At Home in the World? (2002) is a collection of essays previously published in international journals which are not readily available in the Philippines. Aguilar’s introduction, “Beyond Stereotypes: Human Subjectivity in the Structuring of Global Migrations,” contextualizes the recent phenomenon of labor migration within the history of “formal and informal structures and networks of migration” as well as the socio-political forces that determine and affect migration on the global plane. The collection, by way of the introduction, also asserts that migrants are “not passive victim[s] of structures, but [are persons] with human agency and subjectivity who [are] able to navigate through and negotiate with formidable structural forces” (Aguilar 2002, 2).
The following essays in the collection are
significant for this review. “From Registered Nurse to Registered Nanny:
Discursive Geographies of Filipina Domestic Workers in Vancouver, B.C.,” by
Geraldine Pratt, examines discursive constructions of “Filipina” as these are lived
out by Filipinas in Vancouver. Using poststructuralist theories of the subject
and discourse analysis, the essay looks into how workers come into an
understanding of their conditions, given the restrictions placed on them by
their work and immigration status. Five other essays present valuable research on overseas Filipino domestic workers: “Sexuality
and Discipline among Filipina Domestic Workers in Hong Kong,” by Nicole Constable; “Domestic
Bodies of the Philippines,” by Neferti Tadiar; “Stress Factors and
Mental Health Adjustment of Filipino Domestic Workers in Hong Kong,” by
Christopher Bagely, Susan Madrid, and Floyd Bolitho; “Romancing Resistance and Resisting
Romance: Ethnography and the Construction of Power in the Filipina Domestic
Worker Community in Hong Kong,” by Julian McAllister Groves and Kimberly A.
Chang; and “At Home But Not at Home: Filipina Narratives of Ambivalent Returns,” by Nicole
Constable.
Based on her doctoral dissertation, Nicole Constable’s Maid to Order in Hong Kong: Stories of Filipina Workers (1997) draws from the insights of Michel Foucault and Antonio Gramsci on power, resistance, and accommodation to demonstrate that household workers do not just passively give in to the authority of the employer and to their poor working conditions. By centering on human agency and assuming individuals to be free agents in society, it argues that these workers subvert and resist the dominant power relations around them. Maid to Order looks at power and resistance as these are performed by Filipina domestic workers in Hong Kong.
Servants
of Globalization: Women, Migration and Domestic Work (2001) by Rhacel Salazar Parreñas is an ethnographic account of the lives of
Filipino domestic workers in Rome and Los Angeles. These workers do the
menial tasks that local women have renounced for more “productive” work. The book
analyses, at the level of the subject, the costs of labor migration to women who
“leave behind their families to do the mothering and care taking work of the
global economy in countries throughout the world.”
A book that is outstanding in spelling out interconnections between migrant labor, sending and receiving countries’ migration programs, and globalization and the impact of these on the lives of individual workers is Bridget Anderson’s Doing the Dirty Work? The Global Politics of Domestic Labour (2000). This study includes research on Filipina domestic workers based in Europe and analyzes the dynamics of class and race in the global market. Despite the common denominator of gender, this incisive research scrutinizes the politics of race in paid domestic work in the West as it challenges feminist principles of equality, even the notion of “sisterhood.”
Two studies from the Institute of Social
Studies at the Hague are available in research centers in the Philippines: Mary Alice
P. Gonzales’ Filipino Migrant Women in the Netherlands (1998) and
Marilen Abesamis’ “Romance and Resistance: The Experience of Filipina Domestic
Workers in Hong Kong” (1999).
The current phenomenon of female labor
migration has also spawned academic debate that largely centers
on the efficacy of postmodern theories in feminist research on the plight of
Filipina labor migrants. In “Imperialism, Female Diaspora, and Feminism,” Delia
Aguilar interrogates the significance of such theories as well as posing a
challenge about the state of the women’s movement in the United States.
Notwithstanding the importance of analyzing
the impact of the current wave of labor diaspora on the level of the
individual, international labor migration is undoubtedly a development
concern. At issue is the unequal distribution of resources and opportunities at
the national and global levels, which force people to migrate. Undeniably, the
current wave of international migration is intricately linked to the existing
economic model of globalization that fails to improve the life chances of the
great majority of people.
Odine de Guzman is an assistant professor in the
Department of English & Comparative Literature at the University of the
Philippines, Diliman. She is the editor of Body Politics: Essays on Cultural Representations of
Women’s Bodies (2002) and From Saudi with Love: Poems by OFWs (2003). Research for the section “Migration in the Region” was conducted while she was on fellowship at
IKMAS, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, under the Southeast Asian Scholars and Public Intellectuals
Fellowship (SEAF) Program in 2001.
Abesamis, Marilen. 1998-1999. “Romance
and Resistance: The Experience of Filipina Domestic Wokers in Hong Kong.”
Research paper for MA in
Development Studies, Institute of Social Studies, The
Hague.
Agence France Presse. 2001. “Philippines dependent on overseas remittances: Arroyo,” Singapore Window, August 26. http://www.singaporewindow.org/sw01/010826a1.htm, Jan 26, 2003.
Aguilar, Delia. 2002. “Imperialism, Female
Diaspora, and Feminism.” The Red Critique 6 (Sept-Oct). http://www.geocities.com/redtheory/redcritique/SeptOct02/imperialismfemalediasporaandfeminism.htm
Aguilar, Filomeno V. Jr. 2002. Filipinos
in Global Migrations: At Home in the World? Quezon City: The Philippine
Social Science Council and the Philippine Migration Research Network.
______. 2000. “Nationhood and Transborder Labor Migrations: The Late Twentieth Century from a Late Nineteenth Century Perspective.” Asian and Pacific Migration Journal 9, no. 2: 171-198.
Alcid, Mary Lou L. 1988. “Aquino’s Ban:
Added Bane to Filipina Domestic Helpers.” Letter of the Asia Pacific Mission
for Migrant Filipinos, Hong Kong, Feb 27. In “The Manila Ban on Maids: Boon or Bane? A
Documentation.”
Anderson, Bridget. 2000. Doing the Dirty
Work? The Global Politics of Domestic Labour. London: Zed Books.
Asian Institute for Development Communication (Aidcom). 1999. Handbook on Labor Migration in Malaysia. Kuala Lumpur: Aidcom.
Asian Migrant. 2000. Vol. 33 (Apr-Jun).
Asian Migrant Centre. 2003. “Victory for
Migrants! U.N. Migrant Workers Convention (MWC) Becomes International Law.” http://www.migrantwatch.org/,
Sept 23, 2003.
Asis, Maruja M.B. 2002. “Migration Research: What Lies Ahead?” Asian Migrant 15, no. 4 (Oct-Dec): 107-111.
______. 1992. “The Overseas Employment Program Policy.” Philippine Labor Migration: Impact and Policy, ed. Graziano Battistella and Anthony Paganoni. Quezon City: Scalabrini Migration Center.
Ateneo Human Rights Center, ed. 1995. OCWs in Crisis: Protecting Filipino Migrant Workers. Makati: Ateneo Human Rights Center.
Ati Nurbaiti. 2000. “The Media and Labor Migration in Indonesia: Views from the Media.” Asian Migrant 13, no. 3 (July-September): 90-96.
Azizah Kassim. 1998. “International Migration and Alien Labour Employment: The Malaysian Experience.” Megacities, Labour and Communications, ed. Toh Thian Sew. Singapore: ISEAS.
Battistella, Graziano. 2000. “International Migration in Asia in 1999: A Review of Trends.” Asian Migrant 13, no. 1 (Jan-Mar): 5-16.
_______. 2000. “International Migration in Asia in 1999: A Review of Trends.” Asian Migrant 13, no. 1 (Jan-Mar): 5-16.
Battistella, Graziano and Anthony Paganoni, eds. 1992. Philippine Labor Migration: Impact and Policy. Quezon City: Scalabrini Migration Center.
Beltran,
Ruby P., and Gloria F.
Rodriguez. 1996. Filipino Women Migrant Workers: At the Crossroads and Beyond
Beijing. Quezon City: Giraffe Books.
Cariño, Benjamin V. 1995. “International Migrants from the Philippines: Policy Issues and Problems in the Sending Country.” In Crossing Borders: Transmigration in Asia Pacific, ed. Ong Jin Hui, Chan Kwok Bun, and Chew Soon Beng. Singapore: Prentice Hall.
Castle, Robert, Chris Nyland, and Di Kelly. 1997. “International Migration and Labour Regulation.” Asian Migrant 10, no. 3 (Jul-Sept): 76-85.
Chang, Grace. 2000. Disposable Domestics: Immigrant Women Workers in the Global Economy. Cambridge, MA: South End Press.
Chantavanich, Supang. 1997. “Thai National Approaches to the Legal Protection of Women Migrants Workers.” Asian Migrant 10, no. 4 (Oct-Dec): 110-113.
Chantanavich, Supang, et al. 2001. Female Labour Migration in South-East Asia: Change and Continuity. Bangkok: Asian Research Center for Migration, Institute of Asian Studies, Chulalongkorn University.
Centre for Migrant Workers, compiler. 1988.
“The Manila Ban on Maids: Boon or Bane? A Documentation.” Kuala Lumpur: Centre
for Migrant Workers. A compilation of newspaper clippings, government and NGO
documents.
Cheng, Shu-Ju Ada. 1996. “Migrant Women Domestic Workers in Hong Kong, Singapore and Taiwan: A Comparative Analysis.” Asian Women in Migration, ed. Graziano Battistella and Anthony Paganoni. Quezon City: Scalabrini Migration Center.
Constable, Nicole. 1997. Maid to Order in Hong Kong: Stories of Filipina Workers. NY: Cornell University Press.
Del
Callar, Michaela P. with AFP. 2001. “Arroyo insensitive to plight of OFWs – workers’ group.” The Daily Tribune (Jul
31): 3.
Delos Santos, Felix. 1988. “Ban on maids assailed.” Philippine Star (Feb 1): 1.
DER-BSP. 2003. “Overseas Filipino Workers’ Remittances By Country and By Type of Worker for the periods indicated” (1997-2ndQ, 2003). Date last modified: Sept 9, 2003. Manila: Republic of the Philippines, Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas. http://www.bsp.gov.ph/statistics/spei/tab11.htm, Oct 20, 2003.
De Guzman, Odine. 1999. “Testimonial Narratives: Memory and Self-Representation in Letters by Women Migrant Workers.” In Women and Gender Relations in the Philippines: Selected Readings in Women’s Studies, vol. 1, ed. Jeanne Frances I. Illo. Quezon City: Women’s Studies Association of the Philippines. Reprinted in Gender, Culture and Society: Selected Readings in Women’s Studies in the Philippines, ed. Carolyn I. Sobritchea. Seoul: Asian Center for Women’s Studies, Ewha Womans University, and Ewha Womans University Press, 2003.
Development Action for Women Network. 2000.
A Critical Assessment of the Migrant Workers and Overseas Filipinos Act of
1995: RA 8042. Manila: DAWN.
Eko Susi Rosdianasari. 2000. “The Media and Labor Migration in Indonesia: Views from NGOs.” Asian Migrant 13, no. 3 (Jul-Sept): 90-96.
Eviota, Elizabeth U. 1992. The Political Economy of Gender: Women and the Sexual Division of Labor in the Philippines. London: Zed Books.
Fernandez, Irene. 1997. “Migrant Workers and Employers in Malaysia.” Asian Migrant 10, no.3 (Jul-Sept): 94-97.
Goldberg, Pamela. 1996. “International Protections for Migrant Women as a Human Rights Issue.” Asian Women in Migration, ed. Graziano Battistella and Anthony Paganoni. Quezon City: Scalabrini Migration Center.
Gonzales, Mary Alice P. 1998. Filipino Migrant Women in the Netherlands. Quezon City: Giraffe Books.
Gonzalez, Joaquin L. III. 1996. “Domestic and International Policies Affecting the Protection of Philippine Migrant Labor: An Overview and Assessment.” Philippine Sociological Review 44, nos. 1-4 (Jan-Dec): 162-177.
________. 1998. Philippine Labour Migration: Critical Dimensions of Public Policy. Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies.
Heyzer, Noeleen, Geertje Lycklama a Nijeholt, and Nedra Weerakoon, eds. 1994. The Trade in Domestic Workers: Causes, Mechanisms and Consequences of International Migration. Kuala Lumpur: Asian and Pacific Development Center.
Hugo, Graeme. 2002. “Indonesia’s
Labor Looks Abroad.” Migration Information Source: Country Profiles.
Washington DC: Migration Policy Institute. http://www.migrationinformation.org/Profiles/display.cfm?ID=53,
Jul 26, 2003.
_______. 2000. “The Crisis and International Population Movement in Indonesia.” Asian and Pacific Migration Journal 9, no. 1: 93-129.
_______. 1995. “Population Movements in Indonesia: Recent Developments and their Implications.” In Crossing Borders: Transmigration in Asia Pacific, ed. Ong Jin Hui, Chan Kwok Bun, and Chew Soon Beng. Singapore: Prentice Hall.
Immigration Laws. 1995. “Indonesian Workers Complain of Extortion.” May, no. 22. http://www.migrationint.com.au/news/armenia/may_1995-22mn.html,
Jul 26, 2003.
Jayasankaran, S. 2003. “A King’s Ransom.” Far Eastern Economic Review, February 20: 46.
Jones, Sidney. 2000. Making Money Off Migrants: The Indonesian Exodus to Malaysia. Hong Kong and New South Wales: Asia 2000 Ltd and Center for Asia Pacific Social Transformation Studies, University of Wollongong.
Kanlungan Center Foundation, Inc. 2000. Fast Facts on Filipino Labor Migration. Quezon City: Kanlungan Center Foundation, Inc. and Evangelische Zentrallstelle Für Entwicklungshilfe e. V.
_______. 2001. Fast Facts on Filipino Labor Migration. Quezon City: Kanlungan Center Foundation, Inc. with support from Evangelischer Entwicklungsdienst e.V. (EED).
Laguindam, Imelda L. 1988. “Letter to President Corazon C. Aquino.” Letter of the United Filipinos in Hong Kong, Feb 7. In “The Manila Ban on Maids: Boon or Bane? A Documentation.”
Manila Bulletin. 2000. “President seeks continued OFW support.” Dec 10: 1, 8.
Migrants
Rights International. 2003. “International Law on
Migrants’ Rights Protection Enters Into Force.” http://www.migrantwatch.org/,
Sept 23, 2003.
National Statistical Coordination Board.
2000. “Results of the July 2000 Labor Force Survey in the Philippines.” http://www.nscb.gov.ph
Nguyen Ngoc Quyuh. 2000. “Labor Migration in Vietnam.” Asian Migrant 13, no. 3 (Jul-Sept): 87-89.
Ocampo, F. T. 1988. “The Ban on Domestics.” Philippine Daily Inquirer, Jan 29: 5.
Orozco, Wilhelmina S. 1985. “Economic Refugees Voyage of the Commoditized: An Alternative Philippine Report on Migrant Women Workers.” Quezon City: Philippine Women’s Research Collective monograph
Osteria, Trinidad S. 1994. Filipino Female Labor Migration to Japan: Economic Causes and Consequences. Manila: De La Salle University Press.
Palma-Beltran, Mary Ruby, and Aurora Javate De Dios, eds. 1992. Filipino Women Overseas Contract Workers: At What Cost? Manila: Goodwill Trading Co., Inc.
Parreñas, Rhacel Salazar. 2001. Servants of Globalization: Women,
Migration and Domestic Work. California: Stanford University Press. Reprinted in the Philippines
by the Ateneo de Manila University Press, 2003.
Perez, Aurora E., and Perla C. Patacsil. 1998. Philippine Migration Studies: An Annotated Bibliography. Quezon City: Philippine Migration Research Network.
POEA InfoCenter. 2002. “Deployment of Land-based Newly Hired OFWs By Skills Category and Sex, 1992” (Tables 1992 to 2001). Updated September 9, 2002. Mandaluyong City: Republic of the Philippines, Philippine Overseas Employment Administration, c. 2000-2001. http://www.poea.gov.ph/stats/st_dlbnh_sex92-2001.html, Jan 26, 2003.
Ponnampalam, Lingam. 2000. “Mirror or Mold: Newspaper Reportage on Unskilled Labor Migration in Singapore.” Asian Migrant 13, no. 3 (Jul-Sept): 75-80.
Republic of the Philippines. 1996. “Republic Act No. 8042: Migrant Workers and Overseas Filipinos Act of 1995.”
Sivahalan, E. 2000. “Media Reporting on Labor Migration: The Malaysian Experience.” Asian Migrant 13, no. 3 (Jul-Sept): 81-86.
Sta. Maria, Amparita S., Gilbert V. Sembrano, and Ma. Glenda R. Ramirez. 1999. Filipino Migrant Workers in Singapore, Malaysia and Brunei: What They Need to Know – And What They Have to Tell. Makati: Ateneo Human Rights Center.
Stalker, Peter. 1994. The Work of Strangers: A Survey of International Labour Migration. Geneva: International Labour Organization.
_____. 2000. Workers Without Frontiers: The Impact of Globalization on International Migration. Geneva: International Labour Organization/Lynne Rienner.
Sukamdi, Abdul Harris, and
Patrick Brownlee, eds. 2000. Labour Migration in Indonesia: Policies and
Practices. Yogyakarta: Population Studies Center, Gadjah Mada University.
The People’s Movement for Human
Rights Education (PDHRE) / NY Office. “The Human Rights of Migrant Workers.” http://www.pdhre.org/rights/migrants.html,
Sept 23, 2003.
The United Filipinos Against the Ban. 1988. “Press Statement.” February 28. In “The Manila Ban on Maids: Boon or Bane? A Documentation.”
Tirtosudarmo, Riwaanto, and Romdiati Haning. 1998. A Needs Assessment Concerning Indonesian Women Migrant Workers to Saudi Arabia. Jakarta: Center for Population and Manpower Studies, Indonesian Institute of Sciences.
Wong, Diana. 1996. “Foreign Domestic Workers in Singapore.” In Asian Women in Migration, ed. Graziano Battistella and Anthony Paganoni. Quezon City: Scalabrini Migration Center.
Yap Mui Teng. 2000. “Labor Migration in Singapore: Policy and the Role of the Media.” Asian Migrant 13, no. 3 (Jul-Sept): 68-74.
Selected Research Centers and Organizations
Asian Migrant Centre (AMC), 9F Lee Kong
Comm. Bldg., 115 Woosung St., Yau Ma Tei, Kowloon, Hong Kong SAR, China, amc@asian-migrants.org http://www.asian-migrants.org/
Asian Network for Women and International Migration (ANWIM), Asian and Pacific Development Centre, P.O.Box 12224, Pesiaran Duta, 50770 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, gad@pc.jaring.my
Asian Partnership on International Migration (APIM), c/o United Nations Development Programme, Wisma UN, Blok C, Kompleks Pejabat Damansara, Jalan Dungun, Damansara Heights, 50490 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, apim@tm.net.my http://www.apim.apdip.net/
Asia Pacific Migration Research Network (APMRN), Secretariat c/o CAPSTRANS Migration & Multicultural Studies, Institute of Social Change and Critical Inquiry, University of Wollongong, Australia, apmrn@uow.edu.au
Kanlungan Center Foundation, Inc., 77 K-10th
St., Kamias, 1102 Quezon City, Philippines, kcfi@philonline.com.ph,
http://www.kanlungan.ngo.ph
Management of Social Transformation
Programme (MOST), http://www.unesco.org/most/welcome.htm
Migrant Forum in Asia (MFA), Regional Secretariat, c/o Unlad Kabayan, 9-B
Mayumi St., UP Teachers’ Village, Quezon City, Philippines, mfa@pacific.net.hk
http://www.migrantnet.pair.com
Scalabrini
Migration Center (SMC), P.O. Box 10541, Broadway Centrum, 1113 Quezon City, Philippines,
smc@skyinet.net, http://www.skyinet.net/~smc
TENAGANITA,
11th Floor, Wisma Yakin, Jalan Masjid India, 50100 Kuala Lumpur,
Malaysia, tnita@hotmail.com, http://caramasia.gn.apc.org/tn_page0.html
The Network
Opposed to Violence Against Women Migrants (NOVA), c/o Kanlungan Center
Foundation
The
Philippine Migration Research Network (PMRN), Philippine Social Science Center
UP Post Office Box 205 Diliman, Quezon City 1101 Philippines tsis.section@skyinet.net / pssc@skyinet.net
[1] See, for example, Today’s article on Anita Fernando and Marivic David, 28 September 1996; J.T. Burgonio, “Jailed Pinay home to hero’s welcome,” Philippine Daily Inquirer (hereafter PDI), August 17, 2001, p. A6; Fernando del Mundo, “RP’s new heroes subjected to abuse,” PDI, January 7, 2002, pp. A1 & A15; AP, “HK man convicted for scalding RP maid,” PDI, March 20, 2002, p. A4; Dennis Estopace, “NGO calls for gov’t to address trauma of forced OFW repatriation,” Cyberdyaryo, http://cyberdyaryo.com/features/f2002_0426_02.htm, Aug 17, 2002; A.D. McKenzie, “Literature: Eating Curses, Breathing Humiliation,” IPS: The Philippine Migration Trail, http://www.ips.org/migration/1304.html, Aug 17, 2002.
[2] Rhea delos Santos, “Overseas Filipino Workers: Migrant Workers Act fails to protect overseas Filipinos workers,” IBON Features (IBON Foundation Inc., 2002), http://www.ibon.org/news/if/01/28.htm, Jan 26, 2003.
[3] Some parts of this section are revised and updated data from my essay published in Women and Gender Relations in the Philippines: Selected Readings in Women’s Studies, vol. 1, ed. Jeanne Frances I. Illo (Quezon City: Women’s Studies Association of the Philippines, 1999).
[4] See David Lazarus, “Factors that led to Manila’s ban on maids,” New Straits Times (March 1, 1988); “Ban on maids may be lifted if…,” Malay Mail (March 2, 1988); “Ban on Filipina maids may affect lifestyle,” New Strait Times (February 29, 1988); “Cory defends ban on Filipino maids,” New Straits Times (Feb. 9, 1988); Felix delos Santos, “Ban on maids assailed,” Philippine Star (Feb 1, 1988); F.T. Ocampo, “The ban on domestics,” Philippine Daily Inquirer (Jan 29, 1988) all compiled in “The Manila Ban on Maids” by the Center for Migrant Workers, Bukit Nanas Heights, Kuala Lumpur.
[5] Based on reports of members of FGCC, a Christian Ministry based in Kuala Lumpur, who attended the welcome dinner in honor of the president.
[6] Business News, 14 June 2000, quoted in Eko Susi Rosdianasari.
[7] Immigration Laws 1995, Paul Jacob, news reports from Straits Times, April 19,1995 and Xinhua News Agency, April 18, 1995.