JEDDAH, 7 June — The unexpected switch of Sen. John Osmena from supporting the administration to the opposition this week, was not enough to disrupt the Senate’s decision-making capabilities. It was able to pass the absentee voting bill on Wednesday. This should have sent all Overseas Filipino Workers and their supporters into fits of joy, but the happiness was tempered by the fact that the bill might not be upheld by the next session of Congress when it reopens in July. Senate President Franklin Drilon said he wouldn’t certify any bill passed by the “new majority”, adding further uncertainty to the legality of any bills passed by the opposition. Sen. Edgardo Angara, the main sponsor of the original bill, said rather disingenuously that: “We fulfilled our promise to pass the bill by June 6.” That may be so, but if it isn’t going to be upheld by the next session of the Senate, and hasn’t even been passed yet by the House of Representatives, what good will this do to OFWs?
President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo is partly to blame for this situation by angling for a position from which to campaign for the 2004 elections. Instead of building bridges to the opposition, and trying to heal the wounds of Edsa II and III, Arroyo has been relentlessly trying to promote herself and her allies. As usual, the OFWs are caught in the middle and may have lost again.
Hopefully both houses of Congress will pass the AV bill in its next session in July. That’s all OFWs can do: Hope and pray that politicians leave their squabbling behind for a few hours to pass much needed legislation. For once both sides should think of the welfare of all Filipinos first. There will be plenty of time for politicking and deal making in 2004.
MORE BAD news came out this week after Labor Secretary Patricia Santo Tomas’ visit to Saudi Arabia last month. It now appears that not only has she agreed to have Philippine courts uphold all quit-claim documents signed under duress by Filipino workers in the Kingdom, she also agreed to cut the minimum wage of Filipino laborers in Saudi Arabia from $200 a month to $150 a month! It seems that the Philippines is now competing with Bangladesh to see who can provide labor at the most rock-bottom prices.
Philippine Overseas Employment Administration chief Rosalinda Baldoz was trotted out this week in Manila to defend this new minimum wage for unskilled Filipino laborers. Her lame excuse for this rock-bottom wage was to say that it wasn’t lower than the minimum wage for a non-agricultural worker in the National Capital Region. What utter baloney! She further tried to justify the miserly wage by saying it would apply only to those who had not finished high school or college, and added that these workers would be “sourced” from poverty zones. As if that was supposed to make it better.
The whole point of overseas employment in the first place was for Filipinos to make several times what they could earn back home. This fact alone was supposed to justify leaving behind family, loved ones, and country for foreign lands, foreign customs and loneliness. Now it seems unskilled Filipinos are supposed to sacrifice much and go abroad just to survive, forget making more than the minimum wage in Manila. This is indeed a depressing situation and shows perhaps the depths of desperation that the Philippine economy finds itself in, a funk so bad that it can’t even provide menial jobs to its laborers.
Saudi government officials have long been discussing the implementation of a minimum wage in the Kingdom, something the country doesn’t have yet. If even ultra-capitalist America has a minimum wage, why not Saudi Arabia? With no minimum wage in place, exploitation of workers in the Kingdom is unfortunately rife. I know some Sri Lankan workers who make only SR350 a month ($95). Workers from other countries have consistently complained about the low wages accepted by workers from Bangladesh and Sri Lanka, saying that they depressed wages across the board for all workers by accepting such low wages and setting a bad precedent.
OFWs really have nothing much to feel happy about these days. Although Philippine government officials claim to be pro-OFW, the reality is quite different. It seems that while extolling the sacrifices of millions of OFWs, Philippine government officials are more than happy to sell Philippine labor abroad to the lowest bidder. Is this what the Philippines has come to? It’s a shame really.
The Philippines should be exporting skilled and semi-skilled workers, not unskilled laborers. Let other countries do that, not the Philippines.
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