Culture of mendicancy

 

 

San Francisco-based Filipino American lawyer Rodel Rodis wrote in the Philippine Daily Inquirer issue of September 18, 2012, that overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) are responsible for promoting a culture of mendicancy among their family members and relatives who rely on their dollar remittances. This article must be read, not because Mr. Rodis has enlightened us or written something worth our time, but for his shallow and misplaced ideas so we may purge them out of our thinking.

 

The world doesn’t need charlatans like Mr. Rodis. He masquerades as a concerned Filipino patriot (as co-convenor and leader of the US Pinoys for Good Governance, USP4GG), yet looks down on his poor Filipino compatriots who leave their homeland to support their families.

 

Mr. Rodis highlights two documentaries which depict and describe why Filipinos are going abroad to work. But he misses the main storylines of these two films and instead pushes his own false thinking that OFWs are making our society a population of mendicants, people living on handouts and charity.

Filipino workers line up the sidewalks in Hongkong during their day-off. Photo courtesy
of  Kabayanmark Images. Click link to view "Destination Anywhere" by Vanguard,
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N7rVibDsWKo&feature=fvst 

The first documentary, “Destination Anywhere,” tells us why millions of Filipinos have gone to work overseas to provide for their families, such as expenses for their housing, clothing, health care, education of their children, and other personal needs. However, the film did not fail to mention that OFW remittances have reached about 20 billion dollars every year, a statistical fact that keeps the Philippine economy afloat.

 

The second documentary, “Mendicant Society,” however, is more critical of the economic conditions that drive Filipinos to work abroad, and the changes—both the misery and triumphs—they have brought upon their families and the society as a whole.

 

Why Mr. Rodis should conclude that OFW remittances promote a mendicant culture befuddles the mind. For one, his observation is outside the scope of the two films and is a very dismal characterization. Dollar earnings of millions of Filipinos abroad continue to shore up the country’s economy. Former Philippine President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo has recognized OFWs as the country’s new heroes for their remittances, buying properties, and creating businesses. OFW remittances represent 13.5 per cent of the country's Gross Domestic Product. The economic managers of the current administration of President Benigno Aquino III have also credited the contributions of overseas workers to the country’s economic stability.

 

Next to Mexico, the Philippines is the second largest exporter of labour. On the average, 2,500 Filipinos leave the country each day to work abroad. Ten per cent of the population of the Philippines, or nearly 8 million Filipinos, are overseas workers distributed in 182 countries over the world. A large proportion of remittances come from women who are the majority of overseas Filipino workers, mostly domestic helpers and personal service workers.

 

Most overseas Filipino workers are skilled workers who take on unskilled work overseas, thus a brain drain on the country, particularly in the health and education sectors. There are not enough jobs in the country to employ a fast-growing work force. So, new graduates and unemployed workers choose to go abroad even if the result is underemployment, or in some cases, exploitation of labour.

 

A government that has failed its people should be responsible for the exodus of overseas workers. Work overseas has become the only alternative for many Filipinos to escape from the claws of poverty. Those who criticize overseas workers, such as Mr. Rodis, for subsidizing the living expenses and consumer excesses of the families they left behind fail to recognize the real root of the problem.

 

It’s the economy, stupid. Provide people with opportunities to work and earn a decent wage to support their families and they will all stay. There’s no place like home, but when economic conditions make life miserable, these will drive people to search for opportunities outside. Instead of faulting overseas workers for their remittances, blame the government for relying on foreign remittances to keep the economy afloat.

 

The World Bank has observed that the Philippines has been too distracted by the excellent performance of remittances, making the government complacent in addressing its fiscal deficits and low productivity growth. Foreign remittances were so huge, according to the World Bank, they accounted for more than twice the foreign aid the Philippines received. Remittances were also slightly larger than the country’s electronic exports, making Filipino workers the largest export commodity.

 

Migrante International has also recognized that the Philippines’ biggest exports are overseas Filipino workers and will continue to be for as long as the government relies on a labour export program as the centrepiece of its economic plan. Overseas employment is not the effective solution to the underemployment problem, or to the lack of jobs.

 

Without basic industries and with a backward agrarian economy, the Philippines will forever be unable to absorb a growing labour force. This situation drives Filipinos to migrate and work overseas, and the continuing export of cheap Filipino labour has turned these workers into modern-day slaves.

 

Those who criticize OFWs for turning their families into a society of mendicants should read the stories of exploitation of Filipino labour overseas, the cases of OFWs on death row and those beheaded in Saudi Arabia, the abuses and rape of Filipino nannies by their employers, and the unfair labour practices and working conditions most of these workers have to bear.

Repatriated Filipino overseas workers arrived from Lebanon conflict. Photo courtesy
of  IOM International Organization for Migration. Click link to view "Mendicant Society"
trailer, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FAFLEc8_rp0

Overseas Filipino workers have been neglected by the government, yet their critics who accuse them of creating a culture of mendicancy fail to see the full impact of the government’s labour export program, not just its contribution to the Philippine economy but in helping their families survive as well. OFWs and their families have also borne the brunt of separation, which is not healthy for children who are growing up without their parents around.

 

Ultimately, development depends on good economic policies, not in viewing overseas employment as a substitute for economic growth. Foreign remittances from overseas workers can also be tapped for domestic investment, but the government must first have sound economic policies and create the opportunities for investment This appears to be the better thinking rather than placing the onus on OFWs for creating a society of mendicants.

The ghosts of martial law

 

Last year during the 39th anniversary of the declaration of martial law, Edwin Lacierda, the spokesperson of President Benigno Aquino III, was asked what changes the Aquino administration had initiated to improve the human rights situation. In his reply, Lacierda said, “We have no political prisoners.”



The Aquino government continues to deny that there are political prisoners in
the Philippines. Click link http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D9DC4rLtge8
to view "Political Prisoners in the Philippines."

Lacierda also said that the Aquino administration has no official policy on human rights violations. Pointing to the appointment of Etta Rosales as chairperson of the Commission on Human Rights, who herself was a victim of torture under the Marcos regime, Lacierda said this was proof that “We frown on human rights violations.”

 

In denying that there are no political prisoners in the Philippines, at least under the Aquino presidency, Lacierda argued that the list under the Joint Agreement on Safety and Immunity Guarantees (JASIG) bore this out. The list he was referring to contained the names of the persons supposed to be protected by JASIG, who were participants in the peace talks between the government and the National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP). But the list contained assumed names (aliases) as agreed upon by both panels to ensure the security of the peace talk participants, including their consultants and staff.

 

Because Lacierda and the government could not decrypt the JASIG list (complaining that there were even no pictures), he used this as his term of reference why no political prisoners exist in the Philippines. Lacierda must have thought that the NDFP supplied in one list the names of all the political prisoners languishing in various jails and detention centres in the country. The list actually had only the names of the NDFP peace panel members and consultants. Either Lacierda, who is a lawyer, was being overly technical in asking for a clearer term of reference or simply dim-witted to deny that political prisoners in the Philippines are in fact deemed as common criminals and incarcerated along with those charged with murder, theft, robbery and other common crimes.

 

There is nothing novel in Lacierda’s denial. Ferdinand Marcos said the same thing when he said that there were no political prisoners during the martial law period. It has been the official practice of the Philippine government from the time of Marcos to lump all political prisoners with common criminals. From the time of martial law under Marcos, no person has ever been charged with rebellion or treason or for participation in any political activity that opposed the government, but only for crimes such as murder, assault, robbery, kidnapping, illegal possession of firearms, disturbing the peace, and other garden-variety common crimes.

 

Even the President’s father Ninoy Aquino was jailed by Marcos for trumped-up charges of murder, illegal possession of firearms and subversion. Not because he was an outspoken critic of the Marcos administration. Ninoy Aquino was never prosecuted for his political opposition to the martial law regime.

 

How would President Benigno Aquino III react if told that his father was never a political prisoner, but just a common criminal? When in fact Ninoy Aquino was the foremost political detainee at the time.

 

Why would hundreds of other political dissenters and innocent victims of state repression continue to suffer imprisonment? Is it because there are no political prisoners? The President must have a short memory: he has already forgotten that one of the first things his mother, the late President Corazon Aquino, proclaimed upon assuming the presidency after martial law was a general amnesty and to release all political prisoners.

 

A political prisoner is someone who is in prison because he has opposed or criticized the government of his own country. Why most political prisoners have the taken the path of most resistance is not difficult to understand.

 

When Ferdinand Marcos declared martial law on September 21, 1972, he imposed his own will outside of the limits of the Constitution. He ruled by decree and curtailed press freedom and other civil liberties. He closed down Congress and ordered the arrest of opposition leaders and militant activists, including his staunchest critics and potential contenders to the presidency, Senators Benigno Aquino, Jr., Jovito Salonga and Jose Diokno.



Ferdinand Marcos declaring martial law in the Philippines on September 21, 1972.
Click http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLFDB25C4DA6DFF2E0  to view "Batas
Militar: Martial Law in the Philippines" by the Philippine Presidency  Project, a two-hour
 long video produced by Foundation Worldwide People Power (FWWPP).

The economy floundered under martial law because Marcos and his cronies were stealing the country’s wealth. Repression was widespread as the military establishment under Marcos became more entrenched and powerful. They could arrest anyone on mere suspicion and make them disappear.

 

Military historian Alfred McCoy in his book, Closer than Brothers: Manhood at the Philippine Military Academy, cited 3,257 extrajudicial killings, 35,000 torture victims, and 70,000 incarcerated during the Marcos martial law period.

 

As the people were deprived of their political and civil rights, their only viable option was to take to the hills and the path of most resistance. All revolutions are born from similar conditions. Oppressive social structures and economic inequalities often have pushed dissenters to take the road to resistance. Many of these people are poor, weak and belong to underprivileged communities. Where there is state repression, people will always be attracted to fight back.

 

From the martial law years until the present time, political prisoners have been arrested without the veneer of legality, where false criminal charges and manufactured evidence are used to disguise the fact that an individual is a political prisoner. This situation is most common when human rights are violated and abused, to the point of establishing a culture of impunity by the state.

 

The legacy of arrest and detention of political prisoners during the Marcos martial law years has never been broken. As it persisted during the Marcos time, justice became a flexible notion and depended on what was in the best interests, not of the people, but of the state and its dictator. Prosecution was used as a political tool and the presumption of innocence was just an abstract liberal legal principle. While the enemies of the Marcos regime could easily have been liquidated, which in some cases were made through enforced disappearances and extra-judicial killings, the government also opted to make efficient use of the criminal justice system to destroy them. Instead of accusing them of political crimes, they would invent propped-up charges of common crimes. Depriving them of their day in court, they would languish in detention, sometimes tortured and deprived of their decency. What was lacking from the treatment of political prisoners during that time was a “show trial,” a practice that was normally staged in other repressive states where the defendant was brought before the court, a broken and hollow man, to confess his crimes.

 

Putting in prison those who oppose the government, or even forcing their disappearances or extra-judicially liquidating them is a legacy from the martial law years. Today, such arrest and prolonged detention of political prisoners keep lingering on. There are at present about 385 political prisoners, not identified as such but mixed with common criminals, who continue to languish in prison for exercising their right to civil society freedoms.

 

Since President Benigno Aquino III became president, there have been 99 victims of extrajudicial killings and 11 cases of enforced disappearances. Majority of the victims are farmers, indigenous peoples and activists advocating for land rights and environmental protection.

 

In its second-quarter report, the local human rights group Karapatan also documented 60 victims of frustrated killings, 67 victims of torture, 93 victims of physical assault and injury perpetrated by suspected state security forces.

 

We don’t need to have a better definition of terms or perhaps a clearer term of reference on human rights as Lacierda has suggested. In addition to the rule of law that the Philippines upholds, it is also a signatory to almost all international instruments on human rights. Instead of denial, Lacierda and his likes, including the President, have all the terms of reference before their disposal to inform them on why we have political prisoners in the Philippines including ongoing violations and abuse of human rights.

 

All those who are in a state of political denial, such as President Aquino, his spokesperson and others can start with a clear appreciation of September 21, 1972, and be ever mindful of the ghosts of martial law that continue to haunt us as a nation.