Crisanta Sampang

On the Demolition of the Family Class: an interview with Don Davies

2011-12-20T12:00:00.000-08:00

(published at the Mill woods Mosaic, Nov 15th, 2011 issue)

As the Conservative government takes advantage of their majority in the Parliament by merrily passing one bill after another, they’re also radically changing the face of the Canadian immigration system.

The latest among these changes hit the press last November 4, when Immigration Minister Jason Kenney announced that Canada would no longer be accepting family class applications effective November 5.

Don Davies, MP for Vancouver-Kingsway and the Official Opposition Critic for Citizenship and Immigration, was immediately up in arms. “The Minister is capping applications on family sponsorships but increasing the numbers on the economic class? He’s going at this the wrong way. Having family members around them keeps new immigrants happier and less isolated, which is ultimately good for the country and good for the economy. We are the second largest country in the world. Our population is only 34 million. We have enough space.”

A true New Democrat who has seen the living standards of the working class get lower and lower over the years, Don Davies got into politics because he wants to help improve the Canadian quality of life. His interests include housing, job creation, wealth-sharing, education and healthcare for everybody. But most of all, he believes in encouraging immigration, not only of the rich and the highly educated, but of everyone else who wants to come to Canada with their families.

“One day I googled the text of the poem inscribed on the Statue Of Liberty, and I was struck by the wisdom that it expressed. Both the American and the Canadian immigration policies were based on this,” says Don Davies. “But it doesn’t seem to be happening anymore.”

“…Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, the wretched refuse of your teeming shore...” He quotes. “ These are the best kind of immigrants. These people left their home country to escape poverty and oppression and they come here to change their lives. These are the ones who work the hardest and become the best citizens. ”

Instead, Mr. Davies sees a continuous reduction of the family and the refugee classes in the last 15 years, as the economic class increases in numbers. In fact, after changing the rules of the Temporary Foreign Worker Program into a non-recyclable four-year term per worker, closing the family class immigration is only the latest step that the Conservatives have taken towards this end.

The Link, the leading Indo-Canadian newspaper published in Vancouver BC, agrees with Mr. Davies, but also hints at veiled racism: “this is certainly a concerted, directed effort on the part of the Tories … as they realize that the mix from Asia is getting bigger and bigger every year. It is also based on data that in 2030 – visible minority immigrants will overtake the non-visible minority population in Canada. By reducing the family class immigration- which has the largest group of immigrants coming from Asia – specifically from China and India – it is affecting this group and reducing the demand.”

If the NDP were forming the next government, what would they change in the current immigration policies then? Immigration Critic Don Davies has very definite ideas.
First thing he’ll do is increase the number of immigrants. Mr. Davies wants to push for 1 percent immigration, raising the number to 340, 000 immigrants per year, from the current 254,000. He wants to restore the balance of immigration numbers under the family, economic, and refugee classes.

On the Temporary Foreign Worker Program: “The TFWP is nothing but problems,” Don Davies says. “The current system treats the TFWs like an economic piece of equipment. Temporary workers are isolated, they have no access to services, and they are vulnerable to exploitation.” He would reduce the number of temporary foreign workers but give every one of them the option to apply for landed status.
On the Live-in Caregiver Program: Davies confesses that he likes the LCP, but would make several major changes to its requirements.

“It takes a foreign live-in caregiver an average of seven years before she could bring her family to Canada. That length of separation has resulted in countless divorces and traumatized the children. Why keep these families apart if they would be brought in together in the future anyway? It’s a waste of time and it’s bad for the economy.”

Don Davies would like to see the live-in caregivers immediately given permanent residency upon entering the country, and living out with their families. Members of her family would come in under work visas.

On foreign diploma accreditation: “What the government is doing at the moment is talk to the provinces and to every professional group in each province, to come up with a standard for diploma accreditation. We have 10 provinces and about 50 professional groups in each of them. They’ve been at this for years. I don’t think it’s going to work.” Mr. Davies says. “In my 48 years, I have never seen all ten Canadian provinces agree on anything.”

In fact, Don Davies has tabled a motion for the federal government to take a leadership role in the diploma accreditation business. He suggests that the Canadian government talk to every country of origin and together establish standards for diploma accreditation by consulting with its universities, and to make the enforcement of these standards a federal motion. He says he’s carefully watching how the Conservatives will deal with this issue.

From my point of view, Davis and the NDP appear to be on the right track. Let’s help them make it happen.

Teaching ESL Online: new trend helps keep Filipinos at home

2011-11-09T11:54:00.000-08:00

(previously published at the Mill Woods Mosaic, March 15, 2011 issue)

The Korean Engkey is egg-shaped like Eve, the trigger-happy robot in the animated film Wall-E, but it acts like the surrogate in a sci-fi movie starring Bruce Willis. The surrogate is a robot remotely controlled by the individual it represents. It’s created to look like its operator, and it performs whatever tasks he wants it to do.

However, the Engkey is not the product of some scriptwriter’s imagination. It’s a real robot designed by the Korean Institute of Science and Technology, and remotely operated by English teachers from the Philippines. Twenty-nine of these have been deployed in several South Korean elementary schools to teach the English language.

The Korean authorities say these teacher-bots make learning more interesting to their students, while hiring experienced teachers from the Philippines to operate them doesn’t cost them too much. Apparently, the salary rates of the Filipino online English teachers are the lowest anywhere.

Naysayers are already expressing doubts about the long-term psychological effects of learning from robots on Korean children, as well as the prospect of numerous Korean teachers losing their jobs to these bots. The government promises, however, that the Engkey will only be used as reinforcement and will not replace real teachers at all.

This piece of news about the South Korean teaching innovation caught my attention for two reasons: teaching English as a second language is a popular job among English speakers nowadays, and I know people who are doing it both in Canada and in the Philippines, in person and online.

Forget about the Engkey; teaching ESL to other Asians has become a big part of the Philippines’ underground economy. Countries like Japan, China, South Korea, Thailand and Vietnam have decided that learning the language is an important part of their growth, and in conjunction with that, ESL teachers have become in demand.

The Philippines, whose school curriculum required teaching kids English from nursery level, is well placed to share around its fluency. There is, you’ll be interested to find out, a network of agencies all over the Philippines that internationally hire out the services of ESL teachers online through Skype.

Getting an ESL teaching position in the Philippines is not easy, however. An aspiring teacher is first meticulously tested for command of the language; after passing, she is then trained and vetted by the agency that recruited her, and then given a chance to hold demo lessons for her prospective students via Skype. If the students liked what they saw and heard, she got hired.

I know the drill, because my daughter Maricar is currently employed by one of those agencies. She now talks regularly to her Korean agent, discussing students, hiring and paying new teachers, and synchronizing hours. Maricar, who has always chosen not to work outside the home, times her online lessons to coincide with her kids’ school hours, or after they’re home and already in bed.

Maricar loves sharing her knowledge. She enjoys her interaction with her Korean students because they usually set the tone of the lessons, and in some cases they end up discussing current events, political ideas, or interpreting common English idioms and expressions. But most of all, the job allows her to earn money in the confines of her own home. Did I mention she also get paid in US dollars?

I’m impressed with this new job trend in the Philippines. Very pleased for Maricar indeed, but nevertheless envious and feeling hard-done by. Maricar is helping her husband support the family and feeling good about doing it. She gets her three children ready for school in the morning. She helps them out with their homework at night, has dinner with the family, and hangs out with them on weekends. Things I have never been able to enjoy when my own kids were growing up because I needed to leave the country to find work.

If this trend keeps growing --- and I have no doubt it will since there is much demand for ESL teachers among other Asian countries --- the English-speaking Filipinos have a lot to be happy about. They’re sitting in the midst of potential customers totalling over one-and-a-half billion people. With those numbers, there can be only increasing opportunities for teaching in the near future. Which, I daresay, will help many fluent, English-speaking Filipino mothers work from home and stay with their own kids, as opposed to what many of the older mothers like me had done in the past.

The Secret Wish Of A Farmer’s Daughter

2011-09-09T15:13:00.000-07:00

Idyllic. Bucolic. Romantic. Cliché adjectives come to mind whenever I drive along a road that bisects, say, a prairie farm in Alberta or a cornfield in BC’s Fraser Valley, in the summer. I look at the barns and grain silos that tower over endless fields, and I wonder about the farmers who work in them. Being a farmer’s daughter who came from a small community, I’ve always been curious about the farming culture in other places.

Now that I live where produce is available in any grocery store, pre-washed, wrapped and ready to go, sometimes I still feel out of place. Gone are the days when I could go into our yard and pick an orange off a tree for breakfast. Gone are the times when I knew who planted what, and which neighbour’s crop was ready to harvest on a certain week.

My old village was a one-street barangay where houses weren’t numbered, even up to this day. The town postman found people by asking the first resident he met. A response would be something like: ‘Juan Atienza? He lives by that little store. I’m going that way. I could drop his mail off for you.’

Back in my childhood, people helped each other out without expecting to be paid. When someone needed to build a house or weed a field, word was sent and helpers came, in exchange for free meals and the knowledge that when one of them needed similar assistance, people would turn up without question.

When a family hosted a wedding, usually a three-day affair, everyone came to chop wood, fetch water, build the canopy, and contribute live chickens and sacks of rice. Even assist in cooking huge vats of food. These would be the same people who would sing and dance on the eve of the ceremony, and bring their families to the reception next day. When you invited one person, you cooked for ten, because you had to assume their whole brood was coming.

There was trust among neighbours. I recall the days when only one family had a TV set, a gigantic black and white console sitting in their living room. During big basketball tournaments, the village menfolk turned up in this family’s living room to watch the games. All their slippers were left lined in pairs outside the front door. The noise and camaraderie would last until the wee hours, because the audience stayed back to discuss the results. Many times, according to my brother, if the family decided to go to bed early, they’d ask people to please close the door before going.

It was a real shock when I left the farm to live in the city. Neighbours locked their doors. You kept your stuff, like slippers, inside the house so no one could steal it. You tethered your dog because if you lost it, it could end up being someone’s dinner. You had to pay people if you wanted them to do things for you.

I found it even less personal when I lived in Singapore. Our front door was face-to-face with the door of the next condo unit. Its occupants and I sometimes took the elevators together. But never, in the three years I lived there, did we exchange any real conversation or introduced ourselves.

Canada is different from Singapore in many ways. It’s friendlier. Neighbours are inclined to chat over the fence, even look out for each other. I love it here.

Yet I feel the constant call of rural life. I suppose it’s because I left the place when I was so young, before I really needed to leave the village. I suppose there’s much truth to a North American saying that you can take the boy, or girl, out of the country, but you can’t take the country out of them.

My mind is filled with possibly unattainable, possibly foolish thoughts, of one day re-living the past. My secret wish is to buy back the old family farm, --- long since sold to a sugar cane farmer --- repopulate it with fruit-bearing trees, and retire there. Not that I did much farming as a child. I mainly swung on a little hammock under the house and sang loudly while the rest of the family were either weeding the rice field or harvesting it. I left the farm to go to school in the city at age 9. Perhaps the farm and I have unfinished business.

My three daughters who were all born and bred in the big city will certainly find my desire to grow old on a farm strange, or even scary. They’re used to a relatively mud-free environment, where they didn’t have to walk a mile to procure something. They hop into a vehicle and ride everywhere. They have their malls, their Internet, and their cell phones.

They may not know what to do on a rural setting today, but given the chance I’m sure they would love living on a farm as much as I did. After all, they do play Farmville. Rural culture flows in their blood.

(Previously published at the Mill Woods Mosaic, Feb 15, 2011 issue)

Think You’re Getting ‘Faked’? Snoop Around Before Paying

2011-02-10T15:58:00.000-08:00

When Elenor Diaz sent $4000 dollars to the Philippines for her family’s airfare last December, she expected her husband and three children to join her in Montreal long before Christmas arrived. Instead, her husband Nilo called her to say they weren’t coming. The air tickets he bought were worthless, because the Manila agent sold him duds and took off with the money. The family went straight back to the village from the airport, disappointed and feeling humiliated.

Elenor’s employer Lissa Matyas called the Montreal Gazette with the story. Readers responded with donations. The owner of an international remittance company paid $5,800 for new air tickets for Nilo Diaz and the three Diaz children. They finally landed in Montreal on December 29th.

Elenor Diaz’s story is both heart warming and cautionary, because it exemplifies both the best and the worst in others.

Scams and fraudulent acts are perpetrated on the trusting all over the world everyday, and one can only wish these things don’t have to happen too often. In the Philippines, most of the scams being committed are related to immigration and foreign job placements. Scammers know that a lot of people are desperate to leave the country, and would pay whatever it takes to get to where they wanted to go.

Countless dreamers have been burned by empty promises, and getting scammed is so common that Filipinos have come up with a term for it, ‘getting faked’. When someone pays for placement in a non-existent job in another country, then learns about it after his agent has disappeared, he’s been ‘faked’. Through the years, as applicants become savvier, the fraudsters get more sophisticated in response. I’ll cite you a concrete example.

Last year, I’ve had the chance to prevent one of these fake job offers from being foisted on a close friend in Manila. I was alerted by the fact that her Canadian agent required US$700 to get her visa approved. The agency was based in Calgary and didn’t have any offices in Manila. From my experience, legitimate placement agencies don’t ask for big amounts of cash but usually get paid by salary deduction.

Fortunately for my friend, she didn’t have the money. She emailed me to ask for a loan. I requested her to send me the agency details. Since I’m already in Canada, it would be easy for me to find out if the opening was genuine. The letters she had received looked legit at first glance. They contained the name of the agency, its address and phone numbers, and the name of my friend’s contact agent. It also gave the name of the Toronto department store where she was supposedly going to work a sales clerk.

Added to all these information was the name of a lawyer purportedly representing the department store, his address and phone numbers. Another letter said that my friend’s work visa would be released a week from the date of the letter. For the hiring to be finalized, they need the money immediately. You can imagine the pressure on my friend to come up with the amount.

I didn’t trust the job offer and asked her permission to let me do more research. I said if it were genuine, I would help her raise the money. First I called the lawyer, but his phone numbers weren’t in service. Then I called the agency in Calgary. I was told that the agent cited in my friend’s files indeed worked in their office, but denied having anything to do with the job offer. They didn’t have any placement contract with said department store in Toronto, and hadn’t heard of said lawyer. I was assured they didn’t place sales people in department stores.

I did an Internet search and found very similar moneymaking schemes in a scam-reporting website. Different agencies, different lawyers. Same amount of money being required. The same modus operandi being played on hapless job seekers, not only in the Philippines but also in Hong Kong and other Asian countries. As long as there are people who are too trusting, or too desperate, there will be others waiting to prey on them and volunteer to give them what they wanted.

My only suggestion is, if an agency asked you for a big amount of cash, don’t pay. Do some research first. Ask questions. Consult friends and relatives. Use the Internet. Chances are if it were an existing scam, others would have reported it. This may not always prevent you from getting faked, but it could help you avoid other instances.

In Nilo Diaz’ case, it’s harder to tell if you’re dealing with a shady air ticket seller. The best thing to do is go straight to an airline ticketing office and buy it from there. It might cost you a bit more, but you’ll get to your destination without any doubts.

(Previously published at the Mill Woods Mosaic, January 15th 2011 issue)

What exactly, are the roots of racism?

2010-12-11T11:27:00.000-08:00

“Are all the Filipinos poor?” The man sitting beside me in the bus turned to me and asked.

I looked at his face to check if he was joking. The man, also an Asian, was serious. He actually wanted to know. Although I found his question ignorant and offensive, I didn’t say so. Instead, I asked him back: “Are all citizens from your country poor?”

He didn’t think so. I held my tongue after that. I got off on the next stop still upset about the man’s question. That interaction happened twenty years ago. I’ve thought about the incident every now and then; thought about various snide ways of answering him. I always come back to the conclusion that perhaps I should have told him that not all Filipinos are poor, instead of feeling insulted and defensive.

I could have told him that the very rich and the very poor Filipinos usually stay back home. That the rich ones didn’t need to leave the country to find a better life, while the very poor aren’t educated enough and didn’t have the wherewithal to pay their way out. That the Filipinos he meets in Canada are what I would call the adventurous, the middle, the educated class. These include the nannies.

I’ve experienced other expressions of racism since then, some of which were ironically well-meaning. A long time ago, a friend told me that her car broke down in the middle of the Lions Gate Bridge. Said bridge only has three lanes, the middle of which changes direction every twenty minutes or so. It’s one of the two bridges that connect our town to the mainland. Traffic on this bridge notoriously reaches bottle-neck proportions during rush hours. My friend’s car was caught in one of these bottlenecks. Fortunately she was able to steer her car out of the bridge into a safe shoulder.

“Otherwise, I could have been lynched!” relieved, she recounted her experience to me. Then to make sure I understood her, she inquired, “By the way, do you know what ‘lynched’ means?”

Bad question. I was young and rather proud of my fluency in English. I remember giving her three synonyms for ‘lynched’ in one breath. After that, she never assumed I would misunderstand her ever again. We remain close friends.

I’d been in conversations where a Caucasian would speak to me very, very, slowly, word by word, so that I’d get his point. Whenever this happened, I rudely interrupt the speaker by finishing their sentence for them. That usually shuts them up.

I’ve actually lost my temper and shouted at people for being racist to me, at least twice. I’ve now regretted having done so. Forgive me. At the time, though, I found it very satisfying to watch the objects of my anger being rendered speechless with shock. I’m sure they’ve never seen a little brown person explode in their presence before .

Through the years, I’ve grown more tolerant of people’s false assumptions regarding Filipinos, or of other races, for that matter. I myself have been guilty of subscribing to ethnic stereotypes and although I don’t say them aloud, I definitely think them. I have a collection of racist jokes culled from my travels, which I enjoy reading and sharing with others. After all, as my friend says, there’s a little racist in everyone of us.

Which leads me to wonder --- what exactly, is the root of racism?

Firstly, I think it’s borne of ignorance. Not knowing much about a particular ethnic group, aside from what we’ve read in the papers and heard from our friends, we often draw our own skewed conclusions from such limited stores of information. We listen to stereotypes. We believe in blanket classifications of different races. Those guys are bad drivers; this group treat their women like furniture; those people are mostly involved in drug-dealing and other criminal activities. In reality, bad drivers, sexist men, drug dealers, and criminals can be found in every racial grouping.

Secondly, it’s the economy. Take the Philippines, for instance. Due to lack of economic opportunities at home, Filipinos leave the country in droves to seek their fortune elsewhere. Women work as nurses, hotel staff and domestics abroad. In Canada, the Live-in Caregiver Program has brought in thousands of our women to work as domestics and caregivers. A Canadian man admitted once that whenever he saw a gaggle of Filipino women in the bus on weekends, he used to assume they were nannies on a day-off.

And finally, it’s a by-product of colonization. The bitter irony in this type of racism is that a sense of superiority stays with certain members of the colonized long after the colonizers have left. I’ve felt it. I’ve fought against it in my own country. There’s another name for it: colonial mentality. It comes from being born in a place where one is expected to take pride in having some conqueror’s blood running in one’s veins, of being considered prettier than the indigenous because one has a fairer skin or a more western nose. Sad but true.

These days, I’ve stopped reacting violently to whiffs of racism. I try to live by example. Pessimists say there’s no cure for racism, but I’m thinking if I could help open one person’s mind every now and then, that’s good enough for me.

(Previously published at the Mill Woods Mosaic, Oct 15, 2010 issue)

A Salt Spring Holiday

2010-11-12T11:08:00.000-08:00

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

For many immigrants, working usually takes precedence over taking a vacation. I speak from experience. I myself often feel guilty about going on holiday when there’s so much to do. You know, deadlines to meet, mortgage to pay, and children to support. Yet, everytime I came home from a vacation, I couldn’t help feeling inspired.

Take last week, for instance. I went to Salt Spring Island to attend the Apple Festival, only because it was a working holiday and two high-end hotels --- the Hastings House and the Harbour House Hotel --- kindly offered to host us for a week, courtesy of BC Tourism. Even so, I packed my bags with books, scripts and research notes. I didn’t want to find myself idling on such a trip.

Guess what, my work bag came back untouched but my head was buzzing with new ideas.

Salt Spring Island is located about halfway between Nanaimo and Victoria, the capital city of British Columbia. It’s part of an island group called the Gulf Islands. Salt Spring is mainly a farming community with over ten thousand residents, several thousand sheep and cattle, and a thriving deer population. Those in the know consider Salt Spring Island a special place, it being the residence of choice of numerous writers, artists, photographers, cheese makers, sculptors, ex-hippies and gentlemen farmers from all over Canada, many of whom came to visit the Island in the olden days and never left. Artist Robert Bateman and multi-awarded writer Brian Brett, among others, call it home.

There’s a palpable atmosphere of enlightenment and do-gooding around the place. Every other person seems to be involved in some worthwhile cause or another: to change the world, fight poverty or look after the environment. For example, there’s The Pie Ladies who bake and sell hundreds of pies during the apple festival, with proceeds going to the various charities they’re sponsoring. Then there’s the Coffee Ladies who raise money to buy coffee from the Nicaraguan coffee farmers at free trade rates to sell it on Salt Spring. Profits are sent back to Nicaragua to build schools and other facilities. Or those who raise money to send impoverished local kids to school.

But my friend and I are going after other quarries, one of whom is the Apple Man of Salt Spring himself, the organizer of the Apple Festival and dedicated organic apple farmer Harry Burton. Burton’s apple farm is overrun with weeds and vegetables growing among his 125 varieties of apple trees, which in turn share the 4-acre space with innumerable wasps, at least three garter snakes, two dogs, one cat and dozens of chickens. One chicken seemed to have lost its feathers around the neck, looking as if it narrowly escaped being plucked. He told me it was a rare breed called the Naked-Neck. I had to ask.

Harry Burton was proud to say that no insecticides or chemical fertilizers ever touched his farm. He relied on compost, seaweed and oyster shells to feed his plants. Burton, a former professor of Environmental Protection at Canadore College, North Bay, Ontario, developed a strong affinity with the outdoors during childhood. Farming is his “attempt to come back in line with Mother Nature”.

On his website appleluscious.com, Burton cited several advantages to growing organic food: it protects the quality of water, keeps chemicals off your plate, prevents soil erosion, restores biodiversity, and helps reduce global warming by saving energy. Besides, you don’t have to waste money on pesticides and herbicides.

Eating organic food is one of the most important contributions any of us can make to save the planet, according to Burton. Tons of pesticides, herbicides and fungicides are used in commercial farms every year. More than half of these are known to cause cancer, birth defects, genetic changes or serious irritation if ingested directly, but somehow people have allowed themselves to be convinced that food can be exposed to such poisons without absorbing them. When we invest in organic farming, he added, we get a huge dividend: good, healthy food.

Another organic farmer/writer we sought out was Michael Ableman, owner of Fox Glove Farms and the guru of sustainable agriculture, described by a local newspaper as the man “who can grow carrots on rocks.”

An organic farmer for over twenty years, Ableman has been running Foxglove Farms in Salt Spring Island for almost ten. He also established on this farm The Centre for Art, Ecology and Agriculture, to raise awareness and demonstrate the vital connections between farming, land stewardship, food and community well-being. He organizes workshops on how one can help conserve the environment through organic farming. Wow. Listening to Michael Ableman reminded me of a similar center I’ve been planning to build in my own village in the Philippines one day. Now I don’t have to re-invent the wheel. All I need to do is pick the brains of this man before getting started with my own project.

After I shared these thoughts with him, Ableman gave me a copy of From The Good Earth, one of his books. It’s all about growing organic food around the world. I just knew I have to talk to him again.

As you can see, going on holidays can be very beneficial, especially vacationing on a place like Salt Spring Island.

Hostage Taking In Manila: Making sense out of a cacophony of thoughts and voices

2010-10-06T10:26:00.000-07:00

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

Last August 23, dismissed Filipino police officer Rolando Mendoza hijacked a tourist bus in Manila and held its passengers hostage, in a bid to get reinstated. Mendoza and eight Hong Kong tourists were killed in the ensuing crisis.

Hong Kong was livid. China and the United States were quick to condemn the Philippines in letting this tragedy take place. Filipinos were equally divided in their opinions. Many of us expressed shame and horror over this, while others try to see beyond the fiasco into what’s good and positive about the country. People from other parts of the world, those who never had a good opinion of the Philippines to start with, take this as further proof that the Filipinos --- sooner or later --- are all going to hell in a hand basket.

My personal reaction is a whole slew of violent and depressing thoughts, some of which aren’t fit to be printed in this newspaper. But mainly, extreme sadness over the fact that eight innocent tourists died, and that whatever happens afterwards, no amount of rhetoric, condemnation or apologies could bring their lives back.

On a brighter side, President Benigno Aquino III has taken responsibility for the hostage taking and apologized for it. Forensic experts from Hong Kong were allowed into the country to examine the ill-fated tourist bus and other evidence. People have begun the slow process of healing.

The fall-out: Filipino domestic workers in Hong Kong now fear for their jobs, and at least two had been sent back home since. Tourism in the Philippines has suffered. According to various Philippine resorts, cancelled foreign bookings run up to millions of pesos.

Rolando Mendoza, on the other hand, was given a well-attended funeral in his hometown. Guilty or fall guy, but obviously a man who felt he had nothing to lose, Rolando Mendoza did one good thing for the Philippines by dying for his cause. Mendoza brought to light the sorry state of the Philippine police force: the corruption in the ranks and their lack of proper training in handling such emergency circumstances. In so doing, perhaps his death would encourage the Philippine government to bring about an overhaul of the system.

That there is much corruption in the police force is common knowledge. In fact, a member of my own family had been a recipient of unfair police treatment three months ago, and was so traumatized he still had nightmares about it today. The car this man was driving got involved in a minor collision with another vehicle. Damage to the other car wasn’t huge, and its driver agreed to settle the matter for a reasonable amount.

Unfortunately, a policeman arrived on the scene and despite being told by the aggrieved party that he wasn’t pressing charges, the cop hauled my relative to jail and told him this was an issue he had to settle with the arresting officer. The price he needed to pay to get out of prison was quoted. Then said officer went home, and left my relative to stew overnight in the cell to show he meant business. I won’t tell you how my relative got out, but suffice to say, the whole thing left him and the rest of the family afraid and distrustful of anyone in police uniform.

I’m not saying that every policeman is corrupt. I’ve met a few who can’t be bribed and influenced. But imagine for a moment how hard it will be to survive honestly in a dangerous and horribly underpaid job; how your paycheck will fare against the constantly soaring price of commodities. Imagine how far you will go to level that discrepancy, while you watch everyone else trying to make an extra dishonest peso and getting away with it. What are the odds that you will, one day, be tempted to cross the same line?

Something needs to be done about the situation of law enforcement in the country. I have a suggestion: why not print up a gazillion of peso bills and raise the salary of every public servant in the Philippines, but in return, hold them responsible to the people. Train them well. Institute zero tolerance on corruption. That’s what Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew did to stem the rising tide of corruption in Singapore, decades ago. On the other hand, easy for me to say. Singapore is a tiny place.

Having said all these, I’m still proud to be a Filipino.

The Final Journey Home

2010-06-06T11:20:00.000-07:00

(first published at the Mill Woods Mosaic, May 15, 2010 issue)

When Ramon Cutillas was hit and killed by a pick-up truck while cycling along a street in Edmonton, the event spawned some problems for his community and for his family back in the Philippines.

Cutillas left his wife and four children in the Philippines some three years ago to work in Edmonton under Canada’s temporary workers’ program. He was jobless when he died, and didn’t have any savings nor unemployment insurance. The family couldn’t afford the expense to have his body shipped home, and were seeking financial help from the Filipino community in Edmonton.

According to Edmonton’s Serenity Funeral Homes, the process of getting a death certificate and obtaining documentation from the Philippine Consulate in Vancouver, plus preparing the body for shipping, to finally loading it on a plane to Manila usually cost between $8,000 and $9,000.

I have no doubt that the Filipino community will come through for Cutillas and his family, as they always have done in situations like these. They will not rest until enough money is raised and Cutillas’ remains is sent off to be reunited with his wife and kids back in the Philippines. These people understand a family’s emotional need for reunion and closure.

I can fully comprehend this need myself. Having been away from my three girls for two decades and living with this compulsive desire to spend all my time with them, I would love to, at least, pass away in the Philippines, surrounded by them, and leave peacefully after saying my good-byes. Failing that, I’d try to make sure that my body will be shipped home and buried by my children in the family plot.

Wildly romantic, says my friend Daniel, and totally unpractical. He added that in view of this, perhaps I should start saving. Daniel doesn’t subscribe to the idea of spending thousands of dollars on shipping someone’s lifeless body to some country, when her survivors could otherwise make better use of that money.

Meanwhile in Vancouver, a close friend recently died of cancer. Everyone who knew this woman visited her in the hospital. When the time came for her to go, we were only grateful that her sufferings had finally come to an end. She was married but childless. Her husband had her remains cremated and ashes packed in a special container; he then obtained a special permit to carry the package in his backpack on board the plane for burial back in Iloilo, Philippines.

The total cost he paid for cremation and documentation: $775, GST included. Getting his wife interred back in the homeland: priceless.

This amazing disparity between the cost of shipping an embalmed body and a cremated one, however, raises some important questions in my mind. I’ve since asked myself: do I really want to spend $10,000 dollars to get my frozen dead self back to the Philippines to get buried, where I won’t be able to hug or talk to my kids anyway; or, send them an urn containing my ashes along with $9,000 in cold cash. Will it make any difference whether they mourn over my actual body or my powdered form? I think I will let my children decide on this one, based on the fact that I will be dead by then and probably couldn’t care less.

But in the case of Ramon Cutillas, wouldn’t the same amount of money be more useful to his family, the same family who has now lost its sole breadwinner? Another friend, a European, thinks so. And despite myself, I agree with him. But it’s not for my friend or me to decide, right? The Cutillas family had spoken and they wanted their husband and father’s body back. They wanted him there so they could say goodbye properly, mourn his loss adequately, and bury him at the place they could visit every now and then. And talk to him, even with the knowledge that he would never again answer them back. The future can take care of itself.

A very Filipino thing. Even a cultural thing. Definitely an immigrant thing. Because if you’re a Filipino working or living overseas, and most of the members of your family are still based in the Philippines, wouldn’t you want to go back home to them when you die, to know that they will feel some form of closure, rather than an eternal sense of loss because they’ll never see your final resting place?

But let’s be practical for a moment: how much would $9,000 Cdn be in Philippine pesos, based on the current rate of exchange? That’s about P400,000, give or take a few pesos. Enough to buy a small house in a rural area or start a small retail business. But in times of death and bereavement, it’s not something people think about. It’s always easier for a non-objective party to offer their opinion.

What could probably work though, for myself --- and I’ve been thinking of this more and more --- is to get my affairs in order before death comes along. It would save my family a lot of anguish and even guilt, because then they wouldn’t have to choose practicality over personal wishes, because I’ve made the choice for them.

The Canadian Money Tree

2010-03-10T08:45:00.000-08:00

(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.

The Live-in Caregiver Program: A Necessary Evil?

2010-02-09T10:18:00.000-08:00

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

The Live-in Caregiver Program(LCP), a government initiative that brings domestics into Canada from other countries, is here to stay, along with several improvements upon it, Immigration Minister Jason Kenney announced last December 12th. The changes, he said, were the result of consultations with domestic workers’ groups and advocates all over the country.

One notable improvement allows the number of hours a caregiver has worked to be counted towards their qualification for Canadian permanent residence, as opposed to the number of days. Caregivers who have worked overtime hours will then be able to apply for resident status faster that those who haven’t.

A second one gives a live-in caregiver four years to complete the number of hours required to qualify, instead of formerly three.

Minister Kenney probably didn’t get the response he was expecting, because the groups he consulted didn’t get what they asked for. These changes are alright, considering the alternative, but not nearly enough. The caregivers still have to live with their employers, and still have to wait years to be reunited with their families.

The Philippine Women’s Centre of BC, in particular, wasn’t thrilled. They say the LCP is flawed, because it allows employers to exploit their employees, and it rips families apart. I agree with the PWC on both counts.

The PWC is now calling for the cancellation of the Live-in Caregiver Program.

Historically, Canada has been bringing cheap labour from other countries since the 1900’s, because not many citizens are willing to do any of the back-breaking, lower-paid jobs. In the 1970’s the government had the Temporary Worker’s Program, where immigrant women were hired and brought in to do menial work, and then required to leave after their contracts were over.

In 1981, Canada created the Foreign Domestic Movement (FDM) program. Under the FDM, foreign domestics are required to live with their employers but were allowed to apply for landed status and sponsor their families after two years. In 1992, Canada replaced the FDM with the Live-in Caregiver Program (LCP), with added restrictions; raised the educational eligibility to grade 12, and required the caregiver to complete the regulation two years of work within three years.

The LCP’s live-in requirement is no doubt restrictive and discriminatory, and it allows unscrupulous employers to exploit their workers. It has to go. Think about this: if you’re a worker who just got into the country, you’re isolated, scared, and you’re totally dependent upon your bosses for the roof over your head, for the money you need to send home, and you’re desperate to stay because you had a goal, wouldn’t you be scared to say no to any of your employer’s demands?

Believe me, abuse often occurs in these instances. I know because I’ve worked with an Association that helped foreign domestic workers sort their immigration and labour problems. Some of these women have had to take their employers to court just to get the money they’ve already worked for. A few had been physically or sexually assaulted. Women have killed themselves, gone out of their minds, or given up and gone home, because they couldn’t stand the situation they’ve found themselves in. Very sad, but true.

But cancel the LCP altogether? I’m not sure I agree with the Philippine Women’s Centre on this one. What the Program actually needs is some serious overhauling.

The fact is, not all bosses are abusive. Many of them are kind and supportive, and they receive the nanny into their households like a family member. I’m one of those fortunate nannies. My transition from domestic employment to a mainstream job had been smooth, although of course, not easy. I’ve had to volunteer, work and study hard to achieve my goals. But through all those years, my employers had been there for me.

But definitely, let domestics come in as landed immigrants. Let them bring their families with them. Too many children have already been neglected and psychologically affected by separation from their mothers. Too many families have been fractured as a result of the wife/mother’s years of absence.

By the rules of the LCP itself, a caregiver is allowed into the country because she is healthy, educated, and fluent in English or French. According to statistics, 98% percent of these people become permanent residents after three or four years. Which means, all these women and their kids are future Canadians. Isn’t it in the interest of the country to ensure that its citizens are happy and well-adjusted, so that they can become more productive?

Let’s face it, Canada needs immigrants, and we need the job. I think it’s a very fair deal.

If things were different, will there be seniors’ facilities in the Philippines?

2010-02-09T10:13:00.000-08:00

(previously published at the Mill Woods Mosaic on Nov 15, 2009)

In the Filipino culture, neglect of the elderly is not acceptable.

Senior citizens in the Philippines, defined by law as individuals aged 60 and over, comprise 7 percent of the current population, but experts predict this percentage could increase to as much as 14.5 percent by 2025. In view of this, legislators are proposing two different bills in the Philippine Congress --- providing for monthly financial support for the elderly. The pension will go to seniors who live below the Philippine poverty line, who have no families to look after them.

In the West, every senior citizen receives a pension. And everyone who's incapable of looking after himself either moves into assisted living facilities or into homes for the aged. This is normal, in the same manner that western children are expected to move out and create independent lives for themselves by the age of 18. It’s a culture everyone has been brought up in.

In the Philippines, three generations commonly live together under one roof. Unmarried adult children aren’t expected nor forced to move out, and on the flipside, aging parents, grandparents, and unmarried uncles and aunts alike, are looked after until they pass on. Every elder receives filial care, because there aren’t any nursing homes.

However, priorities evolve, fuelled by economic reasons, when families immigrate. Filipinos are a very hardworking and security-conscious people. The minute one’s luggage is unpacked, the new arrival’s thoughts turn to finding a job. After the job, then to start saving for the house. Then to bringing in the rest of the family.

A Filipino immigrant needs to feel settled and financially capable of taking care of everybody else, to be totally happy. And if one doesn’t arrive carrying a luggage-full of dollars, then one needs one or two jobs going, to acquire that feeling of assurance that the family will be housed, fed, and those that require it, educated adequately. One sometimes needs to be almost superhuman to achieve this; in other words, to become a dollar-churning machine.

Every migrant child means well, and her dearest dream is to get her parents to experience every good thing she has ever experienced out there: like eating the same delicious foreign food and gambolling in the same falling snow. Now, for the 70-year-old parent who’s somewhat arthritic, two weeks of that should be good enough. More so if you have no friends in the area, you don’t drive, and your kid has to leave at 6 AM to work. You will not see this kid again until dinnertime. What do you do, then? Watch TV all day, or babysit the grandchildren, and go to church on Sundays. You know your kid wants you to enjoy yourself, but you’re 70 darn it, and you pine for warmer weather and that strong pot of brewed coffee you used to drink with your friends, back in the village. And you miss the extended family.

This could create friction. You don’t want to appear ungrateful, and make your child unhappy, but there’s only so much you can do in their two-bedroom apartment everyday. The child worries about who will look after you back in the village, and what she’ll do if you, god forbid, got sick and needed to be taken to the hospital. But sometimes your homesickness could get so bad, never mind the hospital, you just wanted to go home and die. And be buried in warm familiar ground, mourned by familiar people.

Sometimes it does work and you like it here, because you’re younger and could move independently around. You find people to volunteer with at the local Catholic Church, making sandwiches for the homeless, once a week. You join a bible study group and worship in a born-again church every Sunday. Or join a seniors’ association with dancing and mah-jongg-playing activities on weekends. But when you finally get older and unable to get out of the house, who will look after you then? Your child and her partner are out making money everyday, this time to send their own kids to university. You can’t go home again because your friends in the Philippines have all died off, and there’s no one to go back to. The children suggest getting you into a home so you get better fulltime care.

Loneliness is rampant in the homes for seniors, just because the older folk need more interaction, and the staff is only capable of giving each patient few minutes at a time. But there’s no other option. Whether your children like it or not, sometimes they do have to send you to a home.

An informal survey among my friends in the nursing profession revealed that there are very few, if ever, elderly Filipinos residing in the seniors’ facilities in BC’s Lower Mainland. My friend Fe, a nurse shuttling between two elderly centres in Surrey, BC, says they only have two Filipino seniors, both of whom had been admitted in the last three years. Even then, the children of these old people try to do their best. Both patients, Fe says, are visited by their families everyday.

One wonders, if services were available in the Philippines, will the Filipinos send their elders to such places? It’s like the chicken or the egg conundrum.

Karaoke Magic

2009-11-10T11:04:00.000-08:00

(previously published in the Mill Woods Mosaic, October 2008 issue)

Eyes on the TV screen, ears focused on the beat, I sang what I personally consider a flawless version of ‘Love Me Tender’ and finished with a score of whopping 96 per cent, to the burst of canned applause coming from the huge speakers. I bowed and thanked my audience of one, in my best Elvis Presley manner: “Thank you, thank you very much!”

My daughter Catherine then took the mic, and proceeded to do Britney Spears’ Hit Me Baby One More Time, dancing to the music all the way. 98 per cent. Woo hoo! We high-fived and congratulated each other on our amazing (if I may say so myself) performances. Life was good. Singing the karaoke is a regular feature of my visits to my daughter and her husband’s home in Washington, USA.

Certainly, karaoke singing is a staple part of most Filipino home gatherings everywhere. Correct me if I’m wrong, but I think every Filipino is a closet Celine Dion or Phil Collins wannabe, or as in my case, a combination of Madonna, Elvis Presley and John Denver rolled into one. Mind you, no one outside of my family has ever witnessed any of my karaoke performances, and I have no intention of taking my act on the road. But I can be whoever I want to be inside my home. Such is the magic and flexibility of karaoke.

My Canadian partner who doesn’t care much for the activity, but who sang and played the guitar during his hippie days, jumps in every now and then to assist me when I fail to hit a note. On very rare occasions, he would join in and sing Better Midler’s The Rose. Most times, he plonks himself on the couch and goes to sleep in the middle of the action, periodically waking up to approve or disapprove of my current effort.

Penelope Cruz, an international movie star who doesn’t need much introduction, is well known for her love of karaoke. She has been qouted about how, in every one of her parties at home, she gets her guests to sing with the machine. Imagine, someone rich and famous, singing the karaoke? Hah. Let’s hear it for Penelope!

Knowing this makes me feel pretty good, because it’s a laugh in face of everyone who derides the karaoke culture. My take on the issue is, if it’s good enough for Penelope Cruz, it should be good enough for the rest of the world. So there.

According to my Internet research, the word karaoke comes from the fusion of two Japanese words: kara, meaning "empty," and oke, meaning "orchestra." "Empty orchestra" makes sense as one sings along to a band or orchestra that isn’t there.

The first karaoke machine was invented in the early 1970’s by Inoue Daisuke, a popular coffee shop singer in Japan. Daisuke was often asked by customers for an instrumental version of his songs so they could sing to them at home. Daisuke recognized its market potential so he created the machine that would enable them to do so. The machine came with a set of his songs in instrumental, for which Daisuke charged Y100 per song. In the beginning, Daisuke didn't sell his karaoke machines, but only leased them to those interested. Inoue Daisuke later earned the Ig Nobel Peace Prize --- a parody of the Nobel Peace Prize --- in 2004 for this invention.

Karaoke, ever since, has become an outlet for many would-be performers trying to coax their inner Inoue Daisuke, Barbara Streisand or Julio Iglesias out. Or perhaps just for the sake of entertainment, because nothing else gets people to come together faster in the spirit of fun, other than a shared love for music.

Restaurants that feature karaoke nights in Vancouver, and I’m sure in Edmonton, have become great equalizers. Where else can one find Filipinos, Caucasians, Chinese and other ethnic performers dining together, performing together, and raising their glasses to each other in pure camaraderie, without any judgment? Because I tell you, some singers can be really bad.

Despite its worldwide popularity, though, karaoke singing still enjoys a love-hate relationship with mixed households. While Pinay wives practice dedicatedly in their basements, with a view to impressing their audience in their next public gig, many of their non-Pinoy husbands consider it an annoying aberration in their partners’ otherwise normal psyche, and often choose to remove themselves from the vicinity, or suffer in silence. A friend refers to these men as “innocent victims who quietly suffer when their homes are turned into acoustic concentration camps”. Why do these people dislike it so? Search me.

While my own partner frequently rolls his eyes at my unadulterated excitement over learning my favourite songs on the karaoke, he does patiently guide me in negotiating the tonal quicksands of Janis Joplin’s Me and Bobby McGee or John Denver’s Take Me Home, Country Roads. And if only for that, I vowed to cherish him for the rest of my life.

Where, Exactly, Is The Philippines Headed?

2009-10-13T07:32:00.000-07:00

(previously published at Millwoods Mosaic, Sept 15, 2009 issue)

Here I was, happily researching about the various acts of neglect and infractions the Philippine government has visited upon Filipino citizens working abroad, when I stumbled upon a lively, sometimes snide and somewhat cynical exchange of opinions, regarding the state of the Philippines today. The forum was started by my friend Jun Cabal, a former foreign worker in the US. I decided to take a closer look.

The letter that started this discussion states that: “…our nation is headed towards an irreversible path of economic decline and moral decadence… that in thirty years, the Philippine population will grow to 160 million, 90 million of whom will live below the poverty line, and we’ll probably be the most corrupt nation in Asia… and not even two Peoples’ Revolutions have made a dent in reversing this trend. (Apparently, according to the writer, we’re ranked 11th in the roster of most corrupt Asian countries right now.)

He says: We need a force far greater than our collective efforts… it’s time to move the battle to the spiritual realm…” He firmly believes that only prayer can save the Philippines.

Jerry L, an American married to a Filipina decries the idea of praying. He contends that “the primary reason for poverty in the country is my own Church. The Catholic Church is second only to the government in corruption, being the 'opiate of the masses' as Karl Marx said all those years ago.”

Jerry the cynical thinks prayer alone solves nothing. If one needs to create change, one must get up and do something for one’s self.

Joel, a Filipino living in the US suggests --- and I hope to God he’s joking --- that the Philippines apply to become America’s 51st state, replace the President with an American governor, and then hire Clint Eastwood or Sarah Palin for the job. One of the benefits, he adds, is that we won’t need visas to go to the US.

Philippine Chief Justice Reynato S. Puno, who launched the Moral Force Movement in Manila last August, has a different solution. He recognizes the need to change but believes what counts is the change within ourselves – “a change based on realization that we often faulted others for our problems when we ourselves have defaulted in our fight for our moral virtues and principles.”

Wow. My mind reels when I consider these ideas and the future of my home country. Everyone of these men has a point, although I disagree with Jerry when he equates praying with the Church itself. Praying is a very personal act that could focus the mind and clear one’s perceptions, and it doesn’t have to be done inside a church. Praying could probably help the Philippines.

Joel, I suspect, is most likely a former TNT (tago ng tago --- a Pinoy slang for illegal immigrant) who's gotten a US pardon, (I could be wrong) and thus appreciates the importance of having a green card, but has no intention of ever going back to the Philippines. But he’s gotta be kidding about Palin. Why not Stallone? No offense intended.

Now, I think Chief Justice Reynato Puno is on to a good thing when he suggested that first effecting a change within ourselves will change the Philippines. Yet even then, my opinion is, this is a change that would see result only in the next generation. Not today, not next year, but perhaps during the time of our grandchildren. In filmmaking, we always say, SHOW, DON’T TELL. If parents live the change they wish to make, and individually become a walking example to their children, then maybe. Let's plant the seed and watch it grow.

But where are some of these parents? Working abroad, keeping the economy back home afloat by sending monthly remittances. According to last count, foreign workers sent a record amount of 1.5 billion dollars in June alone. So they can’t hardly be home to teach the kids about change.

My point is, where do we start? The country is bleeding its brains into the international labour market everyday, because it’s not worthwhile staying home. Children are being left under the care of others, while many mothers look after other people’s kids. These young people, the future of the nation, are left inadequately supervised, a lot of them quitting school, joining gangs, abusing drugs, because their parents are out there making money.

I say start the change within ourselves, as CJ Puno advises; even start praying --- not necessarily going to church --- because I don’t think there’s much we can do at the moment. And another thing, those of us working abroad should maybe think about going home more often. Keep reconnecting with the kids. That’s what I’ve been trying to do. One day I’ll go home and never leave, and perhaps show my grandkidz how they can help save the Philippines individually. Slow but sure. Pray for me.

AM I GOING BEIGE? (thoughts on mixed marriages)

2009-09-09T11:17:00.000-07:00

(first published at the Mill Woods Mosaic, July 15, 2009 issue)

One evening, I was happily chattering away in English, while eating rice, pakbet and adobo together with a bunch of my closest friends. I didn’t notice anything different, until my partner Daniel pointed out that all the wives on the table were Filipinas, but the husbands were all white men --- one American and three Canadians. Skin colour, it seems, has ceased to matter, and --- to quote comedian Russel Peters --- we’ve all become beige. It has taken years for every one of us to arrive at this stage of acceptance, and I have to say, it hasn’t been all smooth sailing.

Here in Vancouver, mixed marriages and common-law relationships occur quite often. In recent decades, the growing ethnic diversity in Canada has made it easier for people to meet and marry someone from a different racial group. The numbers are going up: a 2006 Stats Can survey recorded 289, 420 mixed marriages in Canada, a 33% rise from its 2001 numbers.

Actually, skin colour is not that big a deal to second generation immigrants --- the children who grew up in Canada and have had Canadian education along with others of various ethnic origins. One young woman of Filipino parentage told me, “I’m just as Canadian as the next person.” Children of Chinese immigrants sometimes compare themselves to bananas: ‘yellow on the outside, white on the inside.’ So when a marriage occurs between these Canadian-born kids, I suppose one can still call it racially mixed, although not, culturally speaking.

Things are more challenging for first generation ones, like myself and my three other Pinay friends. We all arrived in Canada with our undiluted Filipino-ness. If you think making success of marriage with a compatriot is hard, try marrying someone who grew up in another country.

My friends and I survived by bargaining, discussion and adaptation. And sometimes, through out and out warfare, to get what we want. Areas of contention include handling of finances, pursuit of religion, spoken language, and disciplining of children. It could get ugly. But in the long run, things simmer down, compromises are made, and peace returns to the household. Through the years, one learns that no issue is important enough to consider murdering a bull-headed mate, or to seek divorce.

The only rare exceptions are my friends F and S, who celebrated their 15th wedding anniversary last July. They have built a union founded on cooperation, and suffered very little growing pains. S readily embraced the Filipino culture, and as a result, they behave like a Filipino couple. (F runs the household, S says “Yes, dear.) (Just kidding.) Their finances are fully shared, and their decisions are always by consensus. Except in culinary choices, where F makes concessions by making non-Pinoy dishes during most meals, but lets loose when her Filipino friends are invited for dinner.

Daniel and I thrive on compromise on most things, and it works because we pick our battles. Usually happens when two highly-opinionated people come together. We don’t have culinary problems though, because Daniel likes Asian food and rice, and loves to cook. He once told me. “You’re lucky I like to eat rice.” He acquired a taste for rice during his stint as a Peace Corps volunteer in Borneo. We have rice with dinner 6 days a week.

I said to Daniel, “ You’re lucky you like rice, otherwise you’ll have to learn.”

There’s one thing Daniel remains firm about, though. He flatly refuses to eat tuyo (dried salted fish). He thinks it smells bad, and it doesn’t taste that good either. A long time ago, before we lived together, he visited me regularly at my own place. One day he came over and smelled the tuyo I’ve been frying for lunch. He announced he did, meters away from the house: “ I’m surprised that the police hasn’t cordoned this area off. I thought there was a dead body in here.”

I said to Daniel, “You had better start learning to like the way this smells, because it’s my favourite fish.” It’s one of those stands I had no intention of backing down from.

So Daniel learned to tolerate the smell of tuyo, and to open all the windows and doors when I’m cooking them. And I learned to keep his spice collection in alphabetical order, the way he liked, and ride a bike at my advanced age, to keep him company while cycling around the Stanley Park seawall. And we agree on most other things.

As of now, it looks like we’re going to live happily ever after. If he keeps listening to me, that is.

Searching for a Prospective Husband in North America --- Pinay-Style

2009-07-15T20:10:00.000-07:00

Many North American women jokingly compare the problem of searching for a suitable husband to looking for parking spaces --- the good ones are all taken; the rest are either hard to get into, or disabled.

For newly arrived, unmarried Filipino women in Vancouver, Canada, the single biggest hurdle is finding a prospective life partner; particularly for domestic workers who are in their early twenties to thirties. Most men at this age are already in committed relationships, so the market is quite limited.

Worse, culture gets in the way of mating rituals, these being conducted differently in the West. For instance, the guys are not as confident in approaching women as Pinoys do, so the shy Pinay misses out on opportunities because her silence reads lack of interest. A western woman, on the other hand, has no qualms about taking proactive steps to snag her man. You smile, you approach, you talk to him. It’s called ‘chatting up’, otherwise known as flirting. He gets the message. You get your dude.

Even then, dating does not necessarily end in marriage. A man and a woman ‘see’ each other regularly to find out if they get along, and if so, they then agree to live together and let things develop naturally. I think most western men has a subconscious fear of commitment and could go through a lot of soul-searching before proposing marriage to his girlfriend, whom, mostly, he already lives with. How hard can that be? An unfortunate woman can wait forever for a proposal which isn’t forthcoming.

Filipino women who work as nannies/housekeepers in Canada started coming in the 80’s. Most of these were single, ambitious and educated women who missed the marriage train because they were chasing other dreams. Canada is their final stop, and once they get here, they’re ready to settle down. Good on those who already have boyfriends or fiancés waiting in the Philippines. If these men could wait, they’d be here in three years’ time. No sweat. For those who failed to find a future husband before leaving the country, looking for one becomes a project. This can be done through introduction by friends, or by asking for recommendations by relatives in the Philippines. The rest seeks the help of dating agencies.

In Vancouver, an enterprising older immigrant found the answer to young women’s desires. Maria Southwell, a Filipina married to a white Canadian, decided to give the women a helping hand while earning some money at the same time. She formed Maria Southwell’s Singles’ Club. Men looking for girlfriends could join the club for a fee of $50. Maria organized a monthly singles’ dance where members could meet endless number of ‘girls’ who were there for the same reason. DJ music was provided and everyone paid $10 to get in. The women joined the club for free, and submitted their resumes and photos. Outside of these dances, the guys told Maria what type of women they want and Maria in turn would match them with resumes from her files. The next step was up to them.

In the 90’s, when I was writing for the Philippine Chronicle in Vancouver, I was the self-appointed leader of a group composed of mostly single women. There were seven of us and I was the only one ever married and had children. I could hear their biological clocks ticking frantically, so I hatched a plan. Maria Southwell had been advertising in the Philippine Chronicle and I suggested we give it a try. We’d go to Maria Southwell’s to check the field out. We’d arrive early and pick a table facing the door, and then appear friendly when a likeable guy looked our way. My scheme worked. As the night deepened, everyone in our table was busy dancing and chatting with the boys. The girls went home excited about the new names added to their date books.

What I found out was most of the guys in that dating joint were older, and I thought they weren’t that great a choice either. My girls and I could be underestimating their own wifely worth. (I apologize for this. I was young and arrogant and a man-hating bitch at that time, although I tried hard not to influence my friends in any way.) Next day, I wrote a totally disparaging column about Maria’s Singles’ Club. I said the men at Maria’s were losers, shoppers, seniors, and those who couldn’t find dates under normal circumstances. Added to these were guys who thought they were god’s gift to the nannyhood. I went on unkindly that joining that club was like going to Value Village --- Vancouver’s version of the ‘ukay-ukay’ --- a second hand clothing store: if you dug hard enough and searched long enough, you’d eventually find something of value. I even felt good about what I wrote. Maria Southwell angrily pulled her ad from our paper the very day my column came out.

My subsequent research, however, showed that many women actually found good husband material through Maria’s help. I even interviewed some of them. I was happy to say sorry and eat humble pie.

Even so, finding a good husband in Vancouver remains a problem for Pinays today, perhaps harder than getting good parking spaces.

(Previously Published in The Manila Times in 2007)

The Filipino-Canadian dinner: eat at your own risk?

2009-04-08T08:56:00.000-07:00

(First published at the Mill Woods Mosaic, an Edmonton, Alberta publication, Sept 2008)

The first time my friend Daniel attended a big Filipino dinner, he was flabbergasted. He looked down the loaded dinner table which was set up buffet-style, and beheld a spread that boasted countless dishes from varying countries of origin. He had expected, I believe, a collection of Pinoy culinary specialties he was familiar with, like lumpia, pancit and adobo --- and was not disappointed; but was surprised to see so much more: baked ribs, stir-fried vegetables, sushi, lasagna, blood stew (dinuguan), roast beef, chicken curry and stuffed milk fish (relleno). Sitting in the midst of all these, like a queen reigning among its subjects was a heavy-duty rice cooker filled to the brim with freshly steamed rice. The only thing missing was the lechon, the traditional roast pig, which Filipinos reserve for more special occasions.

Arranged neatly at the farther end of the table were a bowl of cut fresh fruit, a leche flan sitting on a plate of brown syrup, trays of brownie squares and rice cakes and the famous Filipino fruit salad, a glorious concoction of pineapple chunks, grated young coconut, kaong nuts, raisins, apple slices, grapes and cheese bits covered in thick canned cream. This was the dessert corner.

On the side table were different kinds of pop, which included the all-time Pinoy favourite, coca cola, and a purple non-alcoholic punch in a massive punch bowl.

He turned to me and asked whether the event was potluck and that we misunderstood the invitation. I assured him that I received clear instructions food-wise. We were asked to bring only ourselves, and if we were so inclined, perhaps a bottle of wine of our choice.

Now Daniel is one of those traditional Caucasian guys who believe that when you plan a meal, you stick to a certain theme, and he lives by that rule. When he hosts a dinner, he plans early and apprises prospective guests of the culinary theme. If it were potluck, say, he’d email everybody long before the dinner date and tell them what to bring.

For instance, if he fancied serving Greek, he’d prepare the main course which could be roast lamb and a side dish of calamari with tartar sauce. Others were instructed to bring things like a Greek salad, spanakopita or a dessert. The rest can bring drinks if they wanted to. No more no less.

When someone arrived with a contribution that diverged from the theme, the dish got quietly put away in the deep recesses of his fridge and was soon forgotten. Inflexible, I told him, but the guy was born that way.

But I digress. A Filipino gathering in a foreign country, I explained to Daniel, is the sum total of the community’s sensibilities and its continuing evolution. The food Filipinos serve is a reflection of our country’s history. Through centuries of colonization, through our private diasporas, through good times and bad, we adapt, we assimilate, we roll with the punches, we bend like the bamboo that swings with the wind; the food we serve during our parties reflects these. We take the best from our past lives and share it with the rest of the world.

So when you analyze a Filipino buffet table, the types of food on it represent the composite of what the host culled from her life experiences. She’s saying: here’s the special chicken curry I learned to eat and then make when I was working in Singapore; here’s a platter of Japanese sushi which I thought you might enjoy, and here’s a bunch of Filipino dishes I’m proud to share, because they anchor me, and because they remind me of home. I’m sharing with you my lifetime of culinary adventure. I’m sure you’ll like it.

For Daniel The Inflexible, this was a new way of looking at entertaining. And it works. He has since learned to appreciate the gustatory challenge of a big Filipino dinner, and when he hosts a potluck where Pinoys are invited, he now suspends his inclinations to control the theme. It’s become ‘bring whatever you want, as long as it’s edible’. He can now eat pakbet and rice with a side dish of roast beef without questioning its logic, although he still gives dinuguan wide berth.

Et tu, Chip Tsao?

2009-04-03T10:35:00.000-07:00

Hong Kong journalist Chip Tsao, in an article written last March 27th, commented on the Philippines' claims to the Spratly Islands. He wrote:

'But hold on-—even the Filipinos? Manila has just claimed sovereignty over the scattered rocks in the South China Sea called the Spratly Islands, complete with a blatant threat from its congress to send gunboats to the South China Sea to defend the islands from China if necessary. This is beyond reproach. The reason: There are more than 130,000 Filipina maids working as HK$3,580-a-month cheap labor in Hong Kong. As a nation of servants, you don't flex your muscles at your master, from whom you earn most of your bread and butter.'

Chip Tsao has since apologized for these words, offering the excuse that what he wrote was satire. I don't buy it. I'm a writer and I've written satires in my time. I've read and studied the writings of George Bernard Shaw, the ultimate satirist, but Shaw had never written such discriminatory statements under the guise of satire. In my opinion, Mr. Tsao may have apologized due to public pressure, but I have no doubt he remains personally convinced that 'a nation of servants' have no right to put claims on anything. I've also worked as a domestic long enough to meet many people like Mr. Tsao, who thinks that having more money than most entitles a person to be both judge and jury of his impoverished peers.

Shame on Chip Tsao, and shame on everyone tarred by the same brush. They're everywhere, even in Vancouver, Canada. Immigrants like me, who came here looking for a better future, but brought along with them their biases and discriminatory ways of thinking. These people regularly react to brown, Filipino-looking women like me with condescension and lack of respect. Trust me, I have been on the receiving end of such actions.

Perhaps I need to remind Mr. Tsao that when an employer hires a foreign domestic, he is only paying for her domestic services. Her country of origin does not get indentured along with her. Slavery has been abolished in the 1800s. When domestics like me hire out our services, we're practising a profession, not begging for hand-outs. Employers need our help just as much as we need employment in their households. We treat our employers with respect, we consider them members of our families during our time we them, and we refrain from airing the dirty linens in their closets, figuratively or otherwise. It's only fair that we should expect the same kind of regard from them.

And I strongly believe in 'flexing one's muscles' in the face of blatant discrimination, even when one gets paid HK$3,580 a month. Because, believe me, that amount may buy an employer like Mr. Tsao the right to require someone to scrub his dirty toilets and to mother his little children everyday, but it doesn't buy him the right to treat his domestic as a second class citizen or pass judgement on her nation's political actions.

(And by the way, Mr. Tsao, there are 11 million Filipinos working abroad, not all of them domestics. The earnings of the 130,000 underpaid Filipino maids in Hong Kong would barely register in the country's bread and butter meter.)

Fortunately for me and my sisters in profession, there are also countless good employers in Hong Kong who treat their hired help with kindness and who welcome these women into their homes like family members. I'm thankful for all of them. And I'm thankful for having worked as a domestic, because it changed my life.

My only advice to all Filipino domestic workers out there, do not let anyone tell you or treat you as if you're a lesser person than any of them. Do not allow anyone to look down on you because of your accent, the colour of your skin, or the type of work that you do. Because you are equal to any one of them.

And for the more than 130,000 Filipina maids working in Hong Kong, beware of employers like Mr. Tsao. I'm sure there are others like him. But take heart, there will be more of those in Hong Kong who will be good to you, and treat you well, and who would make your employment in that country a productive and memorable one.

OFW Diaries, Episode 1

2009-03-29T19:05:00.000-07:00

Crisanta Sampang here. Let me tell you how I got my face plastered all over the Philippines’ TV screens a few days ago. It was quite an experience.

One day two weeks ago, I was in bed with a sore throat, running a fever, half-delirious and shivering under about six layers of blankets, breathing only through a little blowhole I’d created near my face. The Vancouver seasonal flu had hit me hard, in my first sickness in about 8 years. I’d been away from my job for almost a week. You have to believe the last thing I was thinking about was work, least of all creating a video.

That was when I got a call from Alyx, a young researcher from GMA7; a smart, enthusiastic, slave-driving kid who reminded me of my younger self. Told me she found my name at Google, blah blah blah, and wanted to feature me at their show, OFW Diaries’ pilot episode. I am a Filipino Overseas Worker. A domestic helper, to be exact. I got on Google because I wrote a book about my life working as a domestic in Singapore. It’s called Maid in Singapore. I’m still working part-time as a domestic in Vancouver, Canada by choice, but have since branched out into serious writing and some filmmaking.

I said I’d be interested under normal circumstances, but I was currently down with flu, I had no camera, and I probably didn’t look very photogenic at the moment.

I might however, do it when I got better, which should be sometime middle of next week, and only if GMA7 would provide some camera rental money and shooter expenses. Hiring a cameraman and his camera in Vancouver costs $350 a day. I calculated that shooting would take two days. Plus the fee for couriering the tapes internationally, which could cost you an arm and a leg. We started haggling, and Alyx was very honest.

Alyx said they didn’t have that kind of budget, but could perhaps afford the camera rental. After all, she said, it’s a video diary, you point the camera at your face, say your name and shoot. Hah. Well, OK, I said I might do it because I liked her. But I could only film after I got better, and I WANT that camera rental money.

At this point, Alyx’s segment producer, Isel Caringal, got involved. She wanted my kids to be in the picture too. I now had to sell the idea to my daughters, Maricel and Maricar, who needed a lot of convincing and prodding, because first thing, they argued, they’d have to get their houses photographable, along with themselves and the rest of their families. Too much work. Secondly, they said they were too pangit. I assured Maricar that both of them were plenty good looking enough for TV, and if they needed a second opinion, to go ask their husbands. Maricar told me I only said that because I was their mother. I said to Isel, you better talk to Maricel.

So I was getting over my flu while my girls were warming up to the idea of being on TV, and I sealed the deal by pointing out to them that it would be good for my grandkids to see what’s happening in Lola’s world. Isel and Alyx were now both hustling me to get a move on, frantically issuing instructions and reminders by long-distance calls, text messages, emails and Facebook. Darn technology. I had the feeling that they’d only give me peace when my tapes landed in their hot little hands. Which irritated me a little bit, because I suspected they didn’t believe I could deliver on time. I’ll have to say, to their credit, that these two women know how to get things done.

Isel and her GMA7 crew went to my daughters’ Antipolo homes and I heard filming went without a hitch. Isel also dropped off the camera rental money, as I’d instructed, to save them from paying remittance fees. Next thing I knew, Maricel was texting me. She had hijacked the camera money for Maricar and herself, because, ‘they made us cry and work very hard so we deserve a talent fee!’ Darn it.

Now for my Canadian segment; contrary to Alyx’s argument that I just had to point the camera at myself and shoot, putting myself on video required a little more planning. I got the camera, learned how to use it, tested its audio and found everything alright. I looked for a good background, worked on lighting, framing, and practised answering the interview questions in a way that made my footage easily editable. To further ensure I produced some broadcast quality material, I grabbed my friend Daniel and used him as stand-in during test shots. After all I call myself a filmmaker. I was also under pressure to get this done properly in one take, because Isel and Alyx were breathing down my neck.

Filming done, tapes couriered, I texted both of them that the video was on the way. I could hear their collective sighs of relief echoing from across the Pacific Ocean.

I went back to bed for a well-deserved rest, until I got another flurry of text messages from Alyx. Kara David, the OFW Diaries host, wanted to chat by webcam. Could you, asked Alyx, download Skype so we could do that? Apparently, my YM 8 wasn’t good enough. So OK, on that same night, at 11 PM, I was given ten minutes to download and learn Skype, then talk to Kara David. Oh the stress of it all.

The chat with Kara was rewarding, however. I found her to be an intelligent and engaging host, empathetic and sensitive. She asked good questions. I made her cry. But I loved talking to her and concluded that Kara was indeed the perfect host for the OFW stories. I went to sleep around 1:30 AM happy and excited about the show.

The pilot aired after midnight on March 13th, Philippine time. After the broadcast, I received text and Skype messages from people who have seen OFW Diaries and wanted to tell me how proud they were of me. I was very pleased to hear from them. I have since forwarded the GMA7 link to a variety of people in Canada and heard many good feedbacks. I’ve also watched the other segments on You Tube and cried.
All in all, it has been a good experience, getting my word out there, and hearing back from viewers. I wish Kara, Isel, Alyx and GMA7 more success on their show. Mabuhay OFW’s!