The Canadian Money Tree

(previously published at the Mill Woods Mosaic, February 15th, 2010 issue)

The numbers are in --- Filipinos working abroad, more commonly known at home as OFWs, would have sent home a whopping $17.1 billion by the end of 2009, according to the Central Bank of the Philippines (BSP). In 2008, Overseas Filipino Workers remitted $16.4 billion. Half of this originated from Canada and the United States. An estimated 8.5 million OFWs are currently deployed all over the world.

According to a study published by the Asian Development Bank, the Philippines is the third largest recipient of overseas workers’ remittances in Asia, after India and China. This foreign money makes up a tenth of the country’s output. ADB says the Philippines has been cushioned against the current recession by the dollars that arrive regularly from abroad. In other words, OFWs help keep the country afloat.

President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo gave the returning foreign workers a name: The New Heroes. Being one of those OFWs myself for over 2 decades, and having braved the rigours of working in a strange country, I believe that we rightly deserve this title. We keep the dragons of poverty at bay.

Sending money home: that’s the whole point of going abroad. Every worker I know leave the country because they want to give their family every economic advantage --- a house, a car, and a good education. Especially education. A university degree makes dreams easier to achieve.

I think this is how the myth of the money tree got started. Relatives back home have no idea how hard their kin works to scrape together these monthly remittances; how single-minded these OFW’s are: neither rain nor snow nor gloom of night can stop them from finding those dollars they need to send back. A friend of mine juggles three jobs to keep the remittances going: homecare services, housecleaning, and dishwashing at a restaurant. It’s a common practice among Filipino workers here in Canada, where low-paid part time jobs are plentiful.

The proverbial money tree yields its harvest without fail, once or twice a month from Canada, the US, Taiwan, the Middle East or Singapore. A portion goes to the mortgage, another to school fees, and the rest towards the family’s daily needs. The illusion that earning money is as easy as picking dollars off a tree is then perpetuated. Not many, least of all the foreign worker themselves, talk about the backbreaking work that had often gone into the picking.

The sender, out of generosity and the desire to protect the family from worry and guilty feelings, or their inability to say no, chooses not to talk about it. Don’t worry, be happy. Like me, for instance. Whenever I send money to my daughters in the Philippines, they express guilt and worry. They say, “We should be looking after you at this point, not the other way around”. I tell them it’s alright, I’m having a good time, I love my job. Which is true, for the most part, but I also want them to be happy about the help I’m sending, because giving makes me happy.

Many recipient families themselves, perhaps, whether out of guilt, greed or denial, don’t want to know. I talked to a woman who was working as a domestic in Singapore back in 2006. She was going out of her mind, she told me, because her husband, a fisherman, had been demanding money fast and furiously, and she had no more to give. She had already borrowed from her employer and from her friends. When she stopped sending, the husband refused to take her calls. The woman wondered in desperation whether she should sell her body to augment her income. I suggested she ask her husband that question.

There’s also a certain glamour attached to working overseas, and a Balikbayan --- a returning worker --- who arrives home after years in another country, is treated like a mini-celebrity. People want to hear their stories. They treat them nicely. Relatives like to bask in their presence. Who wants to shatter that illusion? So one avoids telling parts of the story where there had been debilitating homesickness, illness, or the mind-numbing race to cobble enough money by the time mortgage comes due. Everything is fine in the land of money trees.

This kind of giving doesn’t stop, even when Filipinos have made the leap from being OFW’s into immigrants, in places like Canada or the US. Many families back home still expect or demand financial subsidy. This could often create tension between the immigrant and her/his non-Pinoy spouse, who does not understand the culture or feels taken advantaged of, which could sometimes be the case.

But even money trees, like real ones, don’t bloom all year. They need rest and care and a chance to recharge their energy for the next picking season. If this can be communicated honestly and gently by an OFW to their demanding family, I’m sure they will understand.

Right now I’m shovelling some manure around the roots of my own money tree.