 |
 |
| ON THE OTHER HAND |
| FVR Blinked By Antonio C. Abaya Written Jan. 17, 2006 For the Standard Today, January 19 issue For all the bluster and bravado that he displayed in media prior to the much ballyhooed Lakas national directorate caucus last Saturday � namely, that he was insisting that President Arroyo cut her term short in 2006 (later, 2007), and that the proposal of the Consultative Commission (ConCom) to scrap the 2007 elections was a �monumental blunder� � Fidel Ramos was as meek as the proverbial lamb the day after. Was he afraid he was going to be slaughtered? Whimpered the chastised FVR as he left to lick his wounds in India: �You have to be flexible.� We can conclude from this that FVR is no longer insisting that President Arroyo cut short her term and step down from power in 2006 or 2007, and that the �monumental blunder� he warned against will proceed monumentally: there will be no elections in 2007. FVR and GMA stood eyeball-to-eyeball last Saturday, and FVR blinked. No doubt presidential granddaughter Michaela Arroyo will soon learn to sing that song from the musical Damn Yankees, �Whatever Lola wants, Lola gets. And notice, at the conclusion of the caucus, the regal and supercilious smile that President Arroyo wordlessly sported as she sat triumphant between the two emasculated machos, FVR and JDV, who pretended they were busy shuffling documents so that they could hide as best they could their forlorn faces. If Jose de Venecia still thinks he will be the country�s first prime minister in the 21st century in 2007 or 2010, while Gloria Arroyo levitates to the ceremonial presidency, he will be in for a rude awakening. All his annoying whining will have been for naught. He says he will leave it all to God. But God does not meddle in politics, least of all in Philippine cannibalistic politics. If He/She/It did, a walking saint like Cory Aquino would have been canonized president-for-life of this vale of tears in 1986. As for Fidel Ramos, he has been effectively defanged. His Total Approach solution to the impasse, meant to give the drowning President Arroyo last July a lifesaver so that she could have a �graceful exit,� was indeed clutched for a while by Gloria. But in throwing the lifesaver, FVR also fell into the water, and he now needs a lifesaver of his own if he is to survive politically as a major force whose counsel carries any weight. Will the Americans now rescue him, for their own geopolitical reasons? Having survived allegations of scandal after scandal involving her family and her own self, street demonstrations organized by opposition trapos and communists, an aborted congressional impeachment, the defections of ten of her cabinet and sub-cabinet lieutenants, the turn-around of key allies like Cory Aquino and Franklin Drilon, the half-cocked challenges from middle-class do-gooders and former generals, and now the threat of forced retirement coming from within the ruling coalition, President Arroyo must be feeling smug and indestructible and must be mentally taunting her enemies and detractors with a defiant: �Next!� �Next� could be the coming debate on the recommendations of the ConCom. As far as I can tell from published reports, the most important ConCom recommendations are a) the shift to the parliamentary system by 2010; b) the scrapping of the scheduled elections in 2007 for all congressional seats, all provincial and local positions, and half of the seats in the Senate; c) the automatic extension to 2010 of all terms due to expire in 2007; d) in 2006-2007, an information campaign on and debate over the proposed unicameral parliamentary system, followed by a plebiscite in mid-2007; e) if parliamentarianism wins in the plebiscite, the current two Houses of Congress meld into a transition unicameral parliament. Still to be resolved will be the issue of what happens to the incumbent president as the country shifts from presidential to parliament between 2007 and 2010. But since both the ConCom and the Lower House are controlled by the malevolent geniuses in Malacanang, there can be no doubt that the final configuration will be the one that will be the most advantageous to Gloria Arroyo. The ever glib JDV has proposed that GMA be both president and prime minister during this transition period. Or, alternately, that the French model be temporarily adopted, with a strong president and a prime minister appointed by the president. Then, in 2010, we shift to the Westminster or British model, with a strong PM chosen by the majority party, and a ceremonial president as head of state. This is the most cock-eyed political idea since the invention of the parliament (in Iceland, more than 1,000 years ago). Although I have been publicly in favor of the parliamentary system since the time of President Aquino, my position now is to oppose such a shift, for two reasons. Reason No. 1. There should a top-to-bottom overhaul of our electoral and political systems before we ever have another election, referendum or plebiscite. Without such overhaul, the trapos, showbiz fornicators and political dynasts who now control the present discredited system will control the succeeding system. So why bother with ChaCha at all. The Abalos Comelec is not credible, and neither is the citizen watchdog Namfrel which was an accomplice in hiding the fraud committed in 2004 by Comelec officials. Both organizations should be placed under new leadership before they are entrusted again with another election, plebiscite or referendum. I am in favor of qualifying exams for all candidates for all elective positions. Stupid and ignorant people should be barred from holding public offices, no matter how popular they may be with the squealing proletariat. Would you risk your appendix to be removed by a handsome ambulance driver whose knowledge of anatomy is confined to the anatomy of squealing nurses? The entire electoral process, from registration, to voting, to tabulation of results, should be computerized first before we hold another election. Political dynasties should be dismantled. Those convicted of crimes and felonies should be barred from holding or running for any office. Political turn-coatism should be penalized by disqualifying the turncoat from running in the next election. Political ads on radio and TV should be banned completely, to even the playing field. Instead all radio and TV stations should be required by law to surrender part of their air time, during electoral campaigns, to an independent body that will supervise a public info campaign on both media that will accommodate, even-handedly, all competing political parties. Stations may be compensated with tax credits. Political parties that are tied to organizations that seek the violent overthrow of the state should be disqualified from taking part in elections. Reason No. 2. Those who are at present pushing for charter change are misleading the public with their wild claims that changing to the parliamentary system will solve all our problems, will create more jobs, raise everyone�s income, eradicate corruption, etc. The very fact that they make these wild claims shows that they have ulterior, hidden motives for pushing their advocacies. President Arroyo is trying to put the blame for her failures on �the system,� rather than on her own personal shortcomings and mistakes. She now wants to stay in power beyond 2010 and she can do so only as prime minister. Jose de Venecia knows he will never be president; being prime minister is his Plan B. Fidel Ramos wants a second crack at being head of government; being prime minister is his Plan A. If all three were to sign notarized and binding pledges disqualifying themselves from aspiring for the job of PM, I might believe them. But I will never believe their claims that most successful countries are successful due to their parliamentary systems of government. Economic success is a function of economic strategies, not of political configuration. That most of the successful ones in Asia have parliaments is due to history. India, Singapore, Malaysia and Hong Kong were British colonies. Japan and Thailand matured under European influence in the latter part of the 19th century. Korea and Taiwan were Japanese colonies for about 50 years each, and now follow variations of the French parliamentary model, with a strong, directly elected president and a prime minister appointed by the president, as we did under Ferdinand Marcos.. At any rate, South Korea, Taiwan and Thailand modernized under military dictatorships; Singapore and Malaysia under authoritarian-parliamentarian hybrids. China and Vietnam are modernizing under �stinking capitalist-communist� dictatorships. Myanmar (nee Burma) was also a British colony but has been under a military dictatorship since 1962. North Korea has been a hermit socialist kingdom under the Kim dynasty since 1948. Indonesia progressed under a military dictatorship from 1965 until the fall of Gen. Suharto in 1998, and has followed a variation of the French parliamentary model since. There is really no clear-cut model in Asia that anyone can cite as the ideal for the Philippines to emulate, because we all have had different historical trajectories. The Philippines has a presidential system because we were an American colony. Most of Latin America, which have been under Yanqui influence of varying intensities for the past 200 years, also have presidential systems. Some (Costa Rica, Chile) have been fairly successful, most are so-so, a few are failures But their success or failure has more to do with history (such as the quality and the quantity of population inputs from Europe and Africa) and the economic strategies followed (such as plantation economies, import substitution), rather than with the political systems that they chose. It is not true, as the whining JDV claims, that parliamentary Europe has full employment. Spain has the highest unemployment rate among all industrial countries: more than 20%. More than 10% of the workforce in Italy, France and Germany have no jobs. Since the absorption of East Germany by West Germany in 1989, 1.8 million unemployed Germans have migrated to other countries in search of jobs. Their parliaments failed to create full employment. Which planet is JDV talking about? Perhaps Jupiter, one of whose 16 moons is called Europa? But the last time astronomers looked, there was no parliament or president there. To shift from presidential to parliamentary, or from parliamentary to presidential, is a major undertaking. I am not aware of any country that has made this shift in the last 100 years. About 20 years ago, there was a move in India to change to a presidential system, but that did not prosper. About ten years ago, Israel amended its parliamentary system by having the prime minister elected at large, as in a presidential system, instead of being chosen by the majority party. But I understand they have reverted back to the traditional parliamentary way. Countries tend to stay with the system that they started out with. The major exceptions are the �socialist� countries in Europe that had to choose a new configuration after the collapse of their communist regimes in 1989-91. In communist regimes, the most powerful political leaders were the chairmen of the communist parties, not their presidents (unless they were also the party chairmen) or prime ministers. After 1989-91, most of the East European states reverted back to the parliamentary systems that they had before they were communized in 1945-48. To summarize, unless basic changes are first made in our electoral and political systems, as enumerated under Reason No. 1, it would be foolish, even stupid, to shift to the parliamentary system. ***** Reactions to [email protected]. Other articles in www.tapatt.org OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO Reactions to �FVR Blinked� Hello, Just read your column and I really liked the points you made. I agree with everything you said except I really do feel a change of government is due. Break up the country into separate states so it would bring government closer to the people. This would also give Muslims back their homeland while still being part of the Philippines. Muslims need to rule their own. And with Muslims being a productive part of Philippine society it will be a reminder for all peoples of the Philippines that here is a people that remained unconquered and free. Muslims will add strength and an unconquerable spirit to Philippine society. Something which the Philippines desperately needs. Anyways, I was glad to come across your article. Good work! Teo Rusle, [email protected] Jan. 19, 2006 wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww Dear Tony: Thank you for your insightful comments about the proposed Constitution. We shall input them into the matrix we are developing for the Global Forum on the Proposed Constitution. BTW, I enjoyed reading your vignettes about FVR and JDV. Vic Barrios, [email protected] San Francisco, California, Jan.20, 2006 wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww Hi Tony- This is a great piece! But three questions; 1. What politician (or party), and/or what process, could succeed in bringing about the necessary changes you call for in Reason No. 1? 2. If those changes are not made, is there much (or any?) value to future elections at all? 3. Given widespread public dismay and frustration with both the current regime and with the larger political system, and now with the escape of five Oakwood mutineers, doesn't a (popularly supported) military coup, followed by some kind of "Big Brother" regime, seem the increasing likely outcome of the current impasse?? I worry for the Philippines... David Szanton, [email protected]. Durban, South Africa, Jan. 20, 2006 wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww Never count FVR out. He is an operator with a strategic vision who after all is human. He does have his setbacks but what should never be forgotten is his capacity to revive. Take for example when Erap became president despite that being a low point in FVR's life, he still managed to turn things around and lead a conspiracy to oust the president. Then when people forgot and underestimated FVR he suddenly turned up and saved Pandak last year. 2007 is still next year and that's more than enought time for FVR to turn things around again. My bet is that FVR will benefit the most out of this Oakwood escapees more than the ones organizing and directing it. Jose Custodio, [email protected] Jan. 20, 2006 wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww Manong Tony, Please read and study closely the French Model as a system of government. I believe that it is the best alternative to our present system, second is still the present Presidential System devoid of political patronage and compassionate governance, third is a Military Rule with a Unicameral Legislative Body, and the worse, but not the worst, is the Parliamentary System. The reason why some (including you), but not most, people don't even bother to take a second look at the French Model is that they associate it with Marcos as bad for the country. Some Filipinos are still that narrow-minded (whatever that means). But why don't we take a closer look at it again. Definitely a Parliamentary System will further devide the nation not only into two factions but into several factions depending on how many regions there are as represented in the Parliament. GBU! Merardo C. Abaya, [email protected] Jan. 20, 2006 MY REPLY. But you should give your reasons why the French parliamentary model is better, instead of just saying that it is better. That does not help in the debate. wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww Amen. Also, since the Constitution is the basic law of the country, this should be crafted without haste by a duly elected Constitutional Convention of delegates elected purely for that purpose. Not by a Constituent Assembly, and not by a People's Initiative, which is really just politician's initiatives. Jose Luis Yulo, Jr., [email protected] Jan. 20, 2006 wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww Pangalatok Bravado! Old soldiers never die, they just clog the newspapers. Or as the old saying goes: two ears plus two ears equals four ears and a cigar. Please try to have a good day despite it all. Rafael Santos II, [email protected] Roxas City, Jan. 20, 2006 wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww Dear Mr. Abaya, With all the challengers to GMA, both within her camp and without, self-destructing one after the other, it occurred to me that one person with significant clout has remained outside the fray: Danding Cojuangco. Do you think he could persuade enough of the various sides that are disgruntled with GMA but unable to do anything about it - you mention the US neocons, the Philippine middle class, the Marcos/Erap camp, and the younger idealistic military among others - that he is an acceptable alternative? Do you think it has been long enough since Marcos (20 years! my God what a wasted opportunity EDSA was) that the majority of the population wouldn't care that he was a crony? Do you think he would be an enlightened authoritarian leader in the mold of Lee Kuan Yew, Mahathir or Thaksin? Am most keen to know your opinion on this. Tonton Mapa, [email protected] Jan. 20, 2006 MY REPLY. I think Mr. Cojuangco has retired from politics because he has realized that he does not have what it takes � as far as speaking ability, public projection, charisma � to be a successful politician. He might make a good authoritarian leader, but who will put him there? Lee Kwan Yew, Mahathir Mohamed and Thaksin Shinawatra all ran for public office in relatively free elections, though without the participation of communists. wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww Dear ACA, Well I guess you said it. I say "Amen". But what do you think FVR is going to do? Write a book? Write his memoirs? Give talks? AL Jose Leonidas, [email protected] Jan. 20, 2006 MY REPLY. He will probably try again to pressure GMA to step down. wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww Hope FVR reads this article . I an informed that he is sticking to his original stance and he will say so upon his return from India. As he says himself "abangan ang kasunod". What a guy! Cesar Sarino, [email protected] Jan. 20, 2006 wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww Tony, I totally agree with everything you said. Unfortunately, politicians are determined to do this by hook or by crook, and the public at large just doesn't care. Cha-cha is a done deal, my friend. We ordinary people have no choice but to lie down and wait to be screwed by the politicians. Ricky Carandang, [email protected] ABS-CBN, Jan. 20, 2006 wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww Good article, Mr.Abaya, but all this argument on the form of government, to me, doesn�t make sense at all. But one thing that is common to governments that work and don�t work is religion. Latin America, including Mexico, and Spain, Portugal and of course the Philippines. Does our religion have anything to do with all our sufferings? That has been on my mind for some time now. Anyway it�s just a thought. Have a good evening, and more power. Julie Hernandez, [email protected] Jan. 22, 2006 MY REPLY. Religion is a factor in the success or failure of a government, but it is not the only factor. Some predominantly Roman Catholic countries do have governments that work: France, Italy, Austria, Croatia, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Belgium, Poland, Costa Rica, Chile, Ireland, even Spain. Other countries with large Catholic minorities also have governments that work: Holland, Canada, Australia, the UK, the US. wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww Hi Tony, Of course FVR blinked. He just knows when to blink at the proper time. That's why he was at West Point as a scholar, to maximize or hone his psy war techniques. As we all know, he is a great double talker. He has got to deny his role with Abat and the rest of the crew. He also did leave the Carlyle Group a few years back, I believe in 2002. I guess as he could not stomach it's policies. But he has to play ball with the white boys as we can't fight head on with the white boys. But I still have some trust for the guy that there is some sympathy left in him for the country. Sure he did his thing lining up his pockets. All the presidents did, even our so called American friends. But he has to call and make a strategy for us and the future of the Philippines. As manifested in the recent so called escape of the Magdalo boys. I don't think anyone is convinced it's purely accidental. Just a change of plans, and I don't think FVR is a pussy either. Maybe he's just measuring his cards and doing some poker. Thanks again. Your articles really stimulate me. Teddyboy Tagle, Jr., [email protected] Jan. 23, 2006 wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww This is one of the best pieces from the excellent commentaries written by the legendary Tony Abaya... My thanks to him for expressing the poignant truths in the proposed parliamentary system. Opposition to such proposal (parliamentary system) coming from no less than Mr Abaya, makes my sleepless nights an hour less - hoping that people would realize that it is not the system of the government but it is the "malevolent geniuses" (borrowing Mr Abaya's description) running the government that can be at fault. In the case of the Philippines, it has been at fault for decades. There have been too many political geniuses, with deep-rooted malevolence - so deep that it has sucked the system of government into a state where people have perceived that such malevolence is the way of life of a 'public servant' and when generations have gradually accepted that it is, indeed, the way of life. Wouldn't it be nice if - just like Bill Gates' Windows operating systems, the government can be purged (as in formatting the hard disk)?? Purge the whole system - removing all the malevolent viruses, er geniuses, and corruptions in the government, and then re-install a fresh and uncorrupted system of government of the same version. This scenario could appear like this - Install RPGOV ver 1987, with upgrades on COMELEC.DLL. Restart RPGOV. Install anti-malware like ANTI-COUP version 2006 Install anti-virus like ANTI-CORRUPT version 2006 Restart RPGOV Update ANTI-CORRUPT with new corruption cases; registering the corrupt ones Enable ANTI-CORRUPT to run in the background Enable SUPREMECOURT Enable AFP, NBI in the background Enable SENATE, Enable CONGRESS Enable PEOPLE VIGILANCE START - RPGOV INTEGRATED SYSTEM Wouldn't it be nice if it can work this way? Mr Abaya, more power to you sir! Jimmy Leonida, [email protected] Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, Jan. 23, 2006 wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww The following was emailed to us by Bert M. Drona. THE FILIPINO OFW: GLOBAL WOMAN - Nannies, Maids; and Sex workers in the New Economy edited by Barbara Ehrenreich and Arlie Russell Hochschild Metropolitan Books, $26.00 - Book Review by Jonathan Rowe Introduction by Bert M. Drona WHAT WE FILIPINOS SHOULD KNOW: Nowadays, mere survival has become the paramount issue for most students, graduates and families -giving credence to Maslow's Hypothesis on the "hierachy of needs" (or simply common sense). Thus the schooled individual, "instructed" and not necessarily "educated", gets/takes a job (better chances if connected), regardless of whether he/she is thus underemployed, grabs any menial job abroad, swallowing all his pride at best and sacrificing his dignity at worst, and leaving the love ones. Not easily appreciated is the breakdown of the family which accounts significantly in the consequent deterioration of our society . Why do the government and politicians support the export of OFWs? To pay for our odious foreign debt, to not plan for the common good, to have more money to steal and to have a safety-relief valve that would delay/prevent a bloody revolution due to rising expectations, the government and politicians have thus encouraged and begged other countries to allow our primary export earner -the OFWs- to come to their countries. Based on BSP statistics, foreign -direct plus portfolio- investments is insignificant compared to OFW remittances, thus we should question and/or stop our so-called leadership from selling our national patrimony to foreigners and transnationals, i.e. via proposed Charter changes. Also let us remember that portfolio investments are like cash and mainly speculative thus do not help our country in the long-term; foreigners can easily repatriate/take them out 24/7 ( i.e. capital flight). But all these are another topic. Below is an interesting review of a book about overseas workers. THE FILIPINO OFW: GLOBAL WOMAN - Nannies, Maids; and Sex workers in the New Economy edited by Barbara Ehrenreich and Arlie Russell Hochschild Metropolitan Books, $26.00 - Book Review by Jonathan Rowe ON SUNDAY MORNINGS, THE PARKS and plazas of central Hong Kong teem with women. They are Filipinas mainly, but Indians, Thais, Sri Lankans, and others as well--women from the Third World who come to the First to scrub floors, care for children, and generally do work that affluent households no longer have the time or inclination to do. They sit on benches and blankets, chat, eat, entrust parcels to friends going home for visits parcels the friends will carry in big, plastic zipper bags they call "Manila Vuittons." Sunday is their day off. The mood seems high-spirited, festive almost. Most of these women work--and live--in small apartments under the hawk eyes of demanding bosses. They have little privacy and less free time . The park is an escape. Guest workers in a strange land, they have nowhere else to go. The discerning might note a sadness in some of the eyes. Many of these women are mothers. They have left their own children in the care of husbands and relatives, to come to Hong Kong to care for the children of the Chinese, and of British and American expats. Many like them are similarly employed in the Middle East, Singapore, Taiwan, and the United States. There is nothing new to migratory labor, of course. Whether it's by Metrobus from Anacostia to Chevy Chase, a Greyhound from Mississippi to Chicago, or Philippine Airlines from Manila to Hong Kong, people have always followed work and pay. But the conversion of mothering into an object of global trade is another matter entirely, and certainly on this scale. Some 30 percent of children in the Philippines have a parent who works abroad. That means 8 million kids whose mothers (most often) or fathers are thousands of miles away. It also means a lot of First World kids whose experience of the Third is a dark-skinned woman who scrubs their toilet bowl. For the women, it is a way to make the best of a bad hand. A few might be escaping bad marriages; in a nation without legal divorce, work abroad can be the only way out. But the vast majority are doing it for cash to send home . A college graduate can make at least five times more as a maid in Hong Kong than as a teacher in the Philippines. Given the anemic Philippine peso, Hong Kong and U.S. dollars are worth a small fortune. They pay school tuition and enable families to buy land and build homes. Walk through a rural village in the Philippines and you generally can tell, by the quality, of the house, whether someone in that family has worked abroad. But the price can be high . Mothers end up separated from their kids for years. If they are undocumented workers in the United States, they cannot go home at all. As guest workers all these women are easy targets for abuse, with legal recourse that is questionable at best and in practice often irrelevant. You don't like it, Panmoy? There's a plane leaving tomorrow morning, so go back to your pigs and dust and hungry kids. This is not the global economy over which editorial writers enthuse, the one that supposedly will uplift the masses. It sounds more like an arrangement to ensure a supply of cheap labor to clean those editorialists' homes. Yet it is pretty much invisible in America, where nannies and maids disappear into suburban kitchens or else blend into the polyglot throng in major cities. (By one estimate, less than 10 percent of household work in the United States gets reported to the IRS.) That ignorance won't be so easy now, thanks to Global Woman: Nannies, Maids and Sex Workers in the New Economy, a new collection of essays edited by Barbara Ehrenreich and Arlie Russell Hochschild. It is an apt pairing. The former is the author, most recently, of Nickel and Dimed, an account of a year of low-paid "women's work" in the service economy. Hochschild has written extensively on the time-deficits in American households and the effects upon women, most notably in the Second Shift and the Time Bind. The "global woman" of the book's sardonic title is a Third World housekeeper; and the house she is keeping, and the children She is caring for, are those of a First World family that doesn't have--or want to make--the time. As a cage-rattler the book succeeds. The authors give these women a story and a face. I doubt that anyone who reads it will look at Filipina nannies pushing strollers through the Safeway quite the same way again. But as a discussion of the global economic forces that channel Third World women into this role, and the hard facts of their legal status, Global Woman is somewhat spotty. The 17 essays, all by different authors, veer more into the gender politics of household work; some broach thorny questions for the feminist mind. For one thing, the domestic tyrants who rule over migrant maids are, in most cases, women themselves. The patriarchy can't take this rap. But more, Third World nannies Who work in First World homes are, after all, working. To argue that they should be home with their own kids has implications for First World feminism that are uncomfortable to say the least. And don't forget, many First World parents are able to leave the house and kids during the day precisely because these Third World nannies are both available and cheap. The editors deserve credit for venturing into this minefield, even if they don't get all the way across it. They don't flinch from the need at least to pay these workers a decent wage, and accord them more legal protections. But I wish there was more discussion of the law, and of the larger economic context as well. If the care export trade is a challenge to feminists, it is even more so to theologians of the global economy. The current version of that economy enables corporations and goods to cross borders freely. But actual humans still face the strictures of the old mercantile regime. This leads directly to the intolerable situations that Global Woman documents. When migrant workers labor at the pleasure of the host country, with little or no legal protection, their work can slip easily into a version of indentured servitude. To put this another way, if we in the United States and other First World countries are to benefit from a global care trade, then can we wash our hands of the effects with the payment of a monthly check? The Care Drain Global Woman covers a lot of ground. There are essays On Vietnamese professional Women who marry down to get into the United States, on husbands in Sri Lanka whose wives have gone abroad and displaced them as breadwinners, on the trade in teenage prostitutes in Thailand, among many Others. Susan Cheever, the novelist, weighs in with a piece on nannies in New York City, including her own. Ehrenreich observes the emergence of household work as a full-fledged capitalist industry, complete with chains, and puts it in the context of the feminist agenda. Twenty years ago feminists were revulsed at the thought of hiring maids, especially those of color, she says. "There already were at least two able-bodied adults in the average home--a man and a woman--and the hope was that, after a few initial skirmishes, they would learn to share the housework graciously." But we guys balked, Ehrenreich says. Actually it's not quite that simple. Everyone was working longer hours on the job, for example, which meant less time available for the home. But in any case, the stage was set for cleaning ladies--and as it happens, especially Filipinas. If there's a central narrative in Global Woman, it is the legions of Filipinas who have spread across the globe working as nannies and domestic workers. There are 150,000 in Hong Kong alone: It is not accidental that the Philippines has become a leading exporter of human care. People there are educated, well-mannered, and schooled in English, which is the lingua franca of the global Class that hires them. The country also is poor, and those with aspirations for their families and children have a desperate need for cash. As it happens, my wife was one of these nannies, and her story may be instructive. She is the oldest of seven Children, raised on a small rice farm in a rural village without electricity or running water. Her family managed to send her to college, but when she graduated there were no jobs. It took connections even to get work at McDonald's. So she went back to the farm, started a small store, and helped her mother with the siblings while her father worked in Saudi Arabia to earn cash for their tuition. When he came back after six years, she signed up with one of the Philippine placement agencies that profit handsomely from the care trade. Soon she was off to Hong Kong, where she worked for nine years. She made between $400 and $500 a month, about two-thirds of which she sent home. (Her last boss brought her for 10 months to San Francisco, where she and her husband owned an office building. It happened to be the building in which I worked.) Migratory care work generally is an opportunity for educated women of some family means. My wife had to pay a hefty agency fee of 19,000 pesos, or close to $400. (It's more than double that today.) The cash income from their family farm is about $500 a year, but since her father had been in Saudi Arabia they could manage. Many young women can't, and they end up as factory workers, clerks, or housekeepers in a Philippine city for room and board and a tiny salary. Moreover, global migration is a way of life in the Philippines. People don't necessarily like it, but they accept it, with the combination of fatalism, resourcefulness, and pluck that are leading traits of this nation. Family duty is almost as strong there as individual ambition is in the United States. Your family needs help, so you go. Men go as well as women, and their lot can be no less rough. A man in my wife's village showed me a hand with two fingers missing, thanks to a machine in a factory in Taiwan. They promised him compensation but never paid a cent. But jobs for men are more scarce, and tend to require skills. Skilled women go too, especially nurses. In the United States, Filipinas have become to American hospitals what Dominicans are to major league baseball and Koreans to inner-city grocery stores. But nurses aside, women have the advantage precisely because they are "unskilled" in market terms. Their special skills--mothering and housekeeping--though chronically devalued in the market, are in great global demand. The Philippine government promotes this trade, and a whole sub-economy of schools, remittance companies and the like has grown up around it. In the provincial capital of Iloilo, with its tired Spanish colonial streets, one of my wife's many cousins teaches Hebrew to Filipinas preparing to work in Israel. Filipina household workers, in other words, are prototypical global women, and Hochschild's opening essay gets things off to a promising start. Hochschild combines a feminist sensibility with both humanity and common sense, and she has an ear for a phrase. She has interviewed Filipina nannies in the San Francisco Bay Area, and she turns their experience into a suggestive global theme. Third World countries are undergoing a "care drain," she says. The First World once extracted the Third's rubber, oil, and gold; now it extracts parental affection as well. "Today, as love and care become the 'new gold,' she writes, "Third World children pay the price." Migration has become a "dark child's burden." And their mothers' burden as well. Maid and Voyage There is a superb piece on maids in Taiwan by Pei-Chia Lan, a sociologist in that country. In one case, the maid gets caught in a triangle between the wife, husband, and the husband's mother. The mother-in-law doesn't approve of the maid--a good wife would handle the household by herself--and the maid and wife actually form an alliance. The mother-in-law also feels threatened, since the maid might usurp her own functions. The first night the mother-in-law prepares an elaborate Chinese dinner, just to show who's boss of the kitchen. The essay is a model of social anthropology. It gets inside the household relations and seeks to understand rather than to accuse. By contrast, the essay on Filipinas in Hong Kong is more an advocacy piece. The writer, an anthropologist at the University of Pittsburgh by the name of Nicole Constable, shows that these women do not have an easy life. They often sleep in cramped spaces without air conditioning, or in bed with a child, or even on the kitchen floor. They are subject to long lists of petty rules--strict bed times, curfews for day off, dress codes, even restrictions on when and how they can bathe. If they finish their work early, some employers make them do it over again. Filipinas aren't paid to sit idle, after all. In addition, Chinese employers cheat on pay, and violate their contracts in other ways, such as demanding work on days off. (My wife's last employer contrived to get her out of the apartment a week before she was due to leave, forcing her to stay with a friend whose boss was away.) Technically the maids can seek recourse at their consulate. But Filipinos do not have great confidence in their government. More importantly, the maids aren't inclined to make trouble, not with eager replacements a dime a dozen and families back home depending on their remittance checks. Constable's picture is true. Yet there's a tendentious quality that made me want to add a few caveats. Not all Hong Kong bosses are dragon ladies, for example. My wife had three placements during her nine years there, and two were warm households that treated her with respect. The apartments were by far the best places she ever had lived. Even the hard boss--her last--was away often tending to her real estate investments, so there was less pressure. Moreover, maids who work for American or British expats were considered positively lucky. They often enjoyed more lenient rules, along with air conditioning, televisions, and telephones. Sometimes they could even live on their own with the employer paying the rent. Though an anthropologist herself, Constable is not above putting her finger on the cultural scale. Food, for example, is a matter fraught with implication. Does the maid eat the same food as the family, served the same way? The question involves custom, courtesy, and class, and can be especially awkward if the host family speaks little English. One maid reported that her employers served her food in a separate dish at the family dinner table. Her first night she had shown obvious discomfort at eating from a communal dish, and she interpreted the separate dish as an attempt to meet her need. Constable, however, is not satisfied. "A more critical observer," she says, "might wonder if this is another attempt to establish the worker's place as a subordinate member of the household." Yes, and a critical reader might wonder whether that sentence is an attempt to establish that the Filipina is not capable of interpreting her own experience. Global Heart Transplant After the awful plight of adolescent sex slaves, the most wrenching part of Global Woman is the situation of Filipina mothers and their children. Hochschild interviewed a nanny in the San Francisco Bay Area who had to leave her own child two months after birth to come take care of someone else's. "The first two years I felt like I was going crazy," she said. "I would catch myself gazing at nothing, thinking about my child." Hochschild calls such cases a collective "global heart transplant," an image that suggests something about the recipients as well as about the donors. In a joint introduction with Ehrenreich, she writes, "It is as if the wealthy parts of the world are running short on precious emotional and sexual resources and have had to turn to poorer regions for fresh supplies." This part of the story hits home in my household. We had a child eight months ago, and the thought of ripping my wife and child apart rips me apart as well. It reminds me that I am exempt, through no deserving of my own, from many burdens that millions in the world must bare. (I felt much the same way at the reports of Iraqi women who flocked to hospitals to induce delivery before the United States invaded.) The pain metastasizes up and down the line. It is not uncommon, for example, for children in Hong Kong and the United States to become more attached to their nannies than to their own mothers. My wife knew of a case in Hong Kong in which a child was asked in school to draw their favorite person in the world. The child drew a picture of its Filipina nanny rather than its parents. This does not improve relations in the home, nor simplify the nanny's feelings towards her own children. The essay in Global Woman on "The Care Crisis in the Philippines" by Rhacel Salazar Parrenas, an assistant professor of Women's Studies and Asian American Studies at the University of Wisconsin, cites several of these. There is Ellen, for example, who was 10 when her mother left for New York City 12 years before. (The mother was undocumented and so could not leave the United States to visit home.) Ellen felt jealous of her mother's wards in New York, and missed her dearly: "There are times when you want to talk to her, but she is not there." Filipinos are not self-dramatizers. Such statements reflect real pain. Yet this essay clenches its jaw in the face of its own emotional pull. The problem is not the separation of mothers and children, Parrenas says. Rather it is a "dominant gender ideology" that makes these women feel guilty for leaving home, and a media culture that links this separation to social problems such as delinquency. Why, some kids do just fine. Ellen has stayed in touch with her mother by telephone and email. She has done well in school and is now a second year medical student. Ellen is "clearly not the abandoned child or social liability the Philippine media describe." Yeah, but. Leave aside that telephone contact can be erratic in the rural Philippines, and that not all families can afford cell phones to begin with, let alone computers. Leave aside, too, that not all Filipinas--my wife, for example--really care what the newspapers might say on this score. (The Philippine media is feisty with scandal, but does not carry the portentous authority that The Washington Post and The New York Times do here.) Let's listen to another young Filipina named Theresa, who is quoted in the same essay. "When my mother is home, I just sit next to her," she says. "I stare at her face, to see the changes in her face, to see how she aged during the years she was away from us. But when she is about to go back to Hong Kong, it's like my heart is going to burst." Theresa continues, "Telephone calls, that's not enough. You can't hug her, kiss her, feel her, everything. You can't feel her presence. It's just words that you have." But it's all she's going to get, in this essay at least. Again the writer assures us that such children "do not necessarily become 'delinquent.'" The answer is not to find a way to enable mothers to stay in the Philippines, she says. Rather it is a "reconstituted gender ideology," plus more benefits for migrant mothers in their host countries. I'm all for those. But I doubt that either is going to be much comfort to young Theresa. To be sure, Parrenas is right to condemn any stigma against mothers who work abroad. As my wife says, these women are "heroes." They endure hardship and separation to give their kids a better life. But war produces heroes, too, and that doesn't make it a good idea. Even granting the large role of extended families in the Philippines, and the emotional resilience born of frequent migration, it would seem that the global mother trade is something to diminish if at all possible. Going Pains For her own part, Hochschild acknowledges that the best answer would be to enable more Filipinas to work closer to home. This, of course, is easier said than done. As recently as the 1960s, the Philippines was the bright economic light of Asia. Several decades of Marcos, plus a host of other things, took care of that. No one has a sure-fire way to end the country's economic woes, but it would help to acknowledge that policies promoted by the United States don't always help. Freer trade, for example, has brought a surge of agricultural imports, which depress farm prices and bring more hardship to the countryside. One of my wife's sisters did what many in this country do to make cash--she bought piglets to fatten on the farm. (Some 80 percent of the pork in the country is produced by small farmers.) When the time came to take them to market, however, she discovered that imports had driven down the price so much that she would make very little. Experiences like that mean more need for women to go abroad. The United States protected its own markets for over a 100 years while its modern economy took root. Third World nations, especially agricultural ones, may need some flexibility as well. The Western development model has had other unintended consequences where Third World women are concerned. In Thailand, an export-driven economic boom actually has increased the demand for teenage prostitutes, since more men now can afford them. A little humility is in order regarding our prescriptions for the world. But in any event, migratory workers always will be with us, so long as people yearn for a better life. (Hochschild cites evidence that an expanding market economy actually increases migration, perhaps because it raises expectations.) So long as opportunity is so meager in a nation such as the Philippines, moreover, no one should tell a mother she cannot do what is necessary for her kids. But shouldn't these women at least enjoy the full protection of the law in the countries in which they work? This would end an egregious double standard in the global economy. Adam Smith assumed that capital is not mobile, just as (and ultimately because) people are not. This was the basis of free trade theory. If we are going to transgress the premise for fictional persons called corporations, should we not do it for real persons as well? For example, the United States has something called H-1B visas for high tech workers. As a start, how about creating a similar program for nannies, cleaning ladies, and others--one that gives these women legal status so that they aren't so easily exploited. And shouldn't they be allowed, after a brief interval, to apply for citizenship and bring their husbands and children over to join them in the United States? At the very least, shouldn't we require that their employers offer some minimal benefits, including plane fare home--as employers in Hong Kong must provide once the standard two-year contract is over? If we want their labor, then we should be willing to pay the price. This should be high on the agenda for the next round of trade negotiations. It should join intellectual-property protections and genetically engineered food as topics of urgent U.S. concern. Maybe there even should be a sort of WTO for workers and their children, just as there is one tailored for corporations. It could help fulfill the U.N. Declaration on the Rights of the Child, which, as Hochschild reminds us, asserts that children should "grow up in a family environment" and not be separated from their parents against the parents' will. What could be more compassionately conservative than that? We could give this initiative a catchy name. How about "Leave No Child Behind"? JONATHAN ROWE is a Washington Monthly contributing editor. COPYRIGHT 2003 Washington Monthly CompanyCOPYRIGHT 2003 Gale Group wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww The following article was emailed to us by someone who did not attach his/her name. Comparing Ireland and the Philippines. A generation ago Ireland was the sick man of Europe. Today it is the richest country in the European Union after Luxembourg. This predominantly Catholic nation has never had a history that can be called quiet. From its early conversion to Christianity led by St. Patrick; to the entry of Oliver Cromwell, a fanatical protestant, which bred religious hatreds and civil unrest; to the Great Potato Famine in the 1800s; its colonization by the British Empire, and its eventual independence from British rule, Ireland's history has been rife with turbulence, violence, political and economic instability. Ireland shared much in common with the Philippines. It was a country on the brink of economic disaster in the mid-80s due to a borrowing, spending, and taxing spree. Today Ireland enjoys a higher GDP than Germany, France and Britain. It also enjoys zero unemployment and provides jobs to 200,000 foreign workers. So how did this great turn-around occur and what lessons does it hold for our own country? According to Thomas Friedman of the International Herald Tribune, Ireland's formula for success is simple: invest in education, keep corporate taxes low to attract foreign investments, invest heavily in infrastructure development, and undertake fiscal austerity measures to stop the vicious spending and borrowing cycle. Ironically, all the key steps undertaken by Ireland seems to be in direct contrast to the steps that our own government is undertaking to get our country out of ICU and shed off our image as the sick man of Asia. Let's compare and despair... Education. Ireland invested heavily in education. In the 1960s, the country made secondary education free. In 1996 it offered free college education for all. The country never let its deficit reduction program interfere with educational investments. As a result, the country produces a highly-educated workforce, comprised of many engineering and science graduates, which has led to increased labour productivity. In contrast, the Philippines is notorious for its low investment in education. Only 12% of the national budget is allocated for education. Debt servicing, on the other hand, eats up 35% of the budget. The paltry investment in education results in a highly-uneducated population and low participation rates: 90% for elementary, 58% for high school, and only 20% for college. Our proficiency in Science and Math has been on a steady decline. Passing averages in professional licensure exams (e.g. medicine, accounting) have likewise been declining steadily. Our best teachers are immigrating to other countries, some even working as domestic help. Corporate Taxes In a drastic move to save their country, the government of Ireland slashed its corporate taxes to 12.5%, far below compared to the rest of Europe. They even went as far as giving preferential tax treatment to manufacturing and financial industries taxing them only 10% in the 1980s. The results have been phenomenal. According to Friedman, 9 out of 10 of the world's top pharmaceutical companies operate in Ireland, as do 16 of the top medical device companies, and 7 out of the top 10 software designers. Foreign direct investments have increased from $100M in the 90s to $27B in 2002. Last year, Ireland got more foreign direct investments from America than from China. Our own government has taken the exact opposite route. It increased our corporate tax rate to 35% under the new EVAT law, which is one of the highest in Asia. To give you an example, Indonesia's corporate tax rate is 30%, Singapore's is 20%, and Hong Kong's is 16%. As if that wasn't enough, certain features of the new EVAT law are clearly oppressive to business, such as the 70% cap on input VAT. This directly hits industries with low margins and who are on expansion modes, such as retailing, manufacturing, power and distribution etc. The direct foreign investment in our country in 2003 amounted to $319M a huge decline from the $1.3B levels in the 90s. Infrastructure Development. Ireland benefited greatly from European Union membership as it gave the country much needed subsidies to build better infrastructure. In contrast, the Philippines does not get much external funding support for infrastructure projects, and on the few occasions that it does, a Senate probe is sure to follow. Government's own spending on infrastructure is only 2% to 3% of GDP, one of the lowest in Asia. Now, how much of this allocation do you think actually goes to infrastructure development as opposed to bribes and kickbacks? Fiscal Austerity According to Deputy Prime Minister Mary Harney of Ireland, the borrowing, spending, and taxing spree nearly drove her country under. This is when they finally had the courage to stop the vicious cycle. The government, the main trade unions, farmers, and industrialists came together and agreed on a fiscal austerity program. Aside from lowering corporate taxes, this program also included moderating wages and prices, and aggressively courting foreign investments. In our own country, there has been no move to cut on borrowing as the government allocates more and more to debt servicing in order to borrow some more. Furthermore, huge portions of the internal revenue allotments go to the pork barrel fund. How can we learn from the inspiring economic recovery of Ireland? Perhaps we should all kiss the "Blarney Stone" and wish for the luck of the Irish. However, the turn-around of Ireland had nothing to do with luck. It came about as a result of instituting the right domestic policies, embracing globalization, and unifying divergent groups to save their country. What about us Filipinos? Do we love our country enough to save it? Are we willing to put aside our own selfish interests, indifference, and apathy to push for a better Philippines? The time for action is now. If we postpone action, there may no longer be a Philippines to save. And who knows, maybe like the Irish, we will one day find our pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. ***** OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO |
| Tony, In a previous article, you wrote that one of the things to be done is to get rid of the political dynasty families. HOW DO YOU PROPOSE TO DO THIS ... besides exterminating them completely? Roger Olivares, [email protected] Jan. 31, 2006 MY REPLY. There is at least one bill gathering dust in Congress that calls for the dismantling of political dynasties, as mandated in the 1987 Constitution. But it has been shelved because the political dynasts in power do not want their power diminished or eliminated. That is why it is useless trying to amend the Constitution with the political dynasts in place. They will always do everything to protect and preserve their fiefdoms. Only a revolutionary government can remove them from power. wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww |