“ An Overview on The Global

Presence of Filipinos: Location,

Discourse, and Engagements’

Mary Lou L. Alcid

College of Social Work &
Community Development
 Diaspora
 themovement, migration, or
scattering of a people away from an
established or ancestral homeland

 settlement of people in areas that

are far from their ancestral
homelands
 Filipino Diaspora
 Estimated total of 8,187,710
overseas Filipinos (almost 10 per
cent of population)
Permanent: 3,907,842
Temporary: 3,626,259
Irregular : 653,609

Source: Commission on Filpinos Overseas

 Location
 Geographical

Americas/
Trust Territories : 3,518,699

West Asia: 2,261,924

East & South Asia:1,085,049

Europe 693,079
Oceania 312,792
Africa 54,554
 Overseas Filipino Workers Deployment 2008
(New Hires and Rehires)
Regions Deployment
(January-December)
2008 2007 % Change
Philippine
Asia 219,598 218,983 .28
Deployment West Asia 631,828 487,878 29.5
Europe 51,795 45,613 13.5
Americas 31,916 28,019 13.9
Trust Territories 5,461 6,674 -18.2
Africa 16,434 13,126 25.2
Oceana 15,030 10,691 40.5
Others 2,265 7 322.6

Land based total 974, 399 811,070 20.1

Sea-based total 261, 614 266,553 -1.8
Total 1,236,013 1,077,623 14.7
Source: POEA, 2008
 Pres. Gloria M. Arroyo:
“These movements occur in all directions,
not just south-to-north, but also south-to-
south, north-to-north, and in every other
conceivable direction. It is this ceaseless
and restless movement of people that
truly links our respective countries, not
just the capital or goods that economists
love to build their growth models on. It is
people who stimulate the trade, business
and economic exchanges that keep the
global economy moving along.”
Three out of every 10 Filipinos are now
considering moving to another
country if it were possible, according
to Pulse Asia. (PhilStar 8/10/2006)

Why? To escape the political and

economic uncertainty in the
Philippines.
 Features of Migration
 Multi-dimensional

 Intergenerational

 Feminised

 Institutionalised
and state-mediated
 Directed towards East and West Asia
 Feminisation of Migration
 Basis is not only sheer number
 Global gender-based division of labour

 Discrimination against women

 Informalisation of women’s work

> Low valuation

> Extension of reproductive work
> Exclusion from social and legal
protection,including access to justice
 Skills categories of Female
New Hires in 2008

Service workers (81.5%)

Clerical workers (64.3%)

Sales workers (63.1%)

 “Increasingly, women who
migrate from poor countries to
carry out reproductive work in
the households of wealthier
countries participate in a global
care chain as they become
members of transnational
families. “(Yinger)
Migration as a Structural Feature of
Philippine Society
 Filipinos are a migratory people
 Institutionalisation of the
employment program (OEP) in 1974
as a temporary measure
 36 years later, the OEP is still in
place, stronger, wider in reach
 PGMA Administration: People will go
where there are jobs available. The
work of government is to ensure
orderly migration (management of
migration). Government does not
promote migration.
 World systems theory
international migration is an offshoot of
global capitalism.

“ As capitalism extends outward from core nations,

and as market relations penetrate countries in
the developing and former communist world,
noncapitalist patterns of social and economic
organization are disrupted and transformed. …,
large numbers of people are displaced from
secure livelihoods as peasant farmers, family
artisans, and employees of state-owned
industries, creating a mobilized population prone
to migrate, both internally and
internationally.”(Massey 1988).
 Landbased workers (new hires &
re-hires)
 1975-79: 211,878 were deployed
 1980-89: 2,298,443

 1990-99: 5,299,428

 2000-08 :6,550,381
 Sea-based workers
 1975-79: 167,945
 1980-89: 644,092
 1990-99: 1,593,269

 2000-08: 2,231,602
Breaking the 200 country-barrier
 Pres. Arroyo’s target: min. of 1 M
deployment annually
 Change in the focus of POEA: from
regulation to “ …. full-blast market-
development efforts, the exploration
of frontier, fertile job markets for
Filipino expatriate workers
“ (A.O.247)
 CHEd
The newly created
Presidential Task Force on
Education has adopted the
Philippine Main Education
Highway as blueprint to
meet its goal of producing “
quality and world –class
graduates. “ (Valisno 2008)
 CHEd
 CHEd Chair, Dr. Emmanuel Angeles:

“We need to align our degree programs with

those of other countries in the world,
because by 2015 ten Association of
Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN)
countries will open their borders; and, by
2020 the Philippines would join the Asia-
Pacific Economic Cooperation Trade
Regime (APEC).”

10+2+3 scheme
 Technical Education and Skills
Development Authority : PGMA
directed it align its priorities to
POEA’s aggressive marketing
initiative and to intensify its skills
training and skills upgrading program.
 Prof’l Regulation Commission
Its mandate has “gone far
beyond licensing board
passers into promoting and
sustaining a corps of world-
class, technical proficient,
and ethically competent
Filipino professionals.” (PRC
Website)
 Major issues of overseas Filipinos
 Contract violations
 Insecurity of tenure

 Discrimination (e.g. VAW)

 Partial citizenship in destination

countries
 Deskilling

 Family concerns: infidelities,

wayward children, violence
 Human Trafficking
 "thePhilippines is primarily a country
of origin of trafficked for the purposes
of commercial sexual exploitation and
forced labor, primarily to Japan,
Malaysia, Singapore, Hong Kong, &
South Korea. (June 2008 U.S. State Department
Trafficking in Persons Report)

 Filipinas
trafficked range from 300,000
to 400,000 annually (Senator Jinggoy Estrada, November
2008)
 Human Trafficking
 Trafficking of Filipinas in Singapore
reached "all-time high", with 212 cases in
2007, representing a very alarming
increase from 59 in 2004 (DFA, 2008)

 Malaysia: 9 Filipinas recruited by a

Malaysia-based syndicate led by a
Singaporean who used the alias Alfred Lim
(PDI, March 26, 2009)
 Major Concerns
 Illegal
recruitment which reflects
weakness in the exercise of
regulatory power by the government
 Illegal Recruitment
 POEA Administrator Jennifer Manalili:
“POEA has noticed an increase in
illegal recruitment cases, more
particularly in Cavite and Calabarzon
areas. (April 21-23, 2009, Convention on Illegal Recruitment-Free
LGUs, Davao City.)

– Malaysia: At least 40 Filipina victims were

repatriated to the country on March 23,
2009 (VP Noli De Castro).
– Lebanon: 57 Filipina domestic helpers
repatriated from Lebanon, most of them
escaped from their employers (ABS-CBN
News: May 6, 2009).
 Consequences of institutionalised
migration
 Culture of migration
 Emergence of transnational families

 Demographic shifts in communities

 Businesses targetting overseas

Filipinos: door-to-door deliveries,
real estate
 Social costs : brain drain, brain
hemorrhage, family problems
 “Moral Hazard”
 Ineconomics, this means that an
economic agent becomes “careless
or negligent” if there is assurance of
support or subsidy during periods of
risk and uncertainty… Remittances of
OCWs may create wrong incentives
arising from this “moral hazard
problem”. (Aldaba,F. 2004)
 Remittances
 Yr 2000 = US$ 6.0 billion
2008 = US$ 16.4 billion in 2008
(annual growth rate of 13.3%)

Sept. 2009 = US$ 12.79 billion,

4.2 per cent (BSP)

Remittances fuel domestic spending which

is the main engine of the country’s
economic growth.
 Challenges to the Next
Administration
 Job creation : Until when should the
government promote overseas
employment?
 Lack of protection for overseas
Filipinos during the migration cycle:
pre-departure, in transit, onsite and
return
 Challenges
 Mobilization of local government units in
recruitment and marketing, but not in the
protection of migrants
 Sensitizing frontline workers of
government agencies, Philippine
embassies and consulates to the situation,
and rights of overseas Filipinos
 Providing for migrants’ social protection
 Initiatives by Migrants’
Organisations
 Organising (mutual support to political )
 Advocacy

 Networking

 Education on their rights, entitlements

 Legal action

 Transnational movement-building : e.g.

domestic workers alliance (Philippines and
foreign based workers)
Anti-Trafficking
Seminar, Escopa

Non-support
Consultation

Roundtable
Discussion, Illegal
Recruitment