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Wednesday, February 1, 2012

No flood of Filipino Migrants

Merry-Go-Round
No flood of Filipino Migrants
By FLORO L. MERCENE

MANILA, Philippines — There is an estimated 150,000 Filipinos in Hong Kong, working mostly as housekeepers and maids. We already know that many of them are college graduates and they sometimes double as English teachers to their young wards.

However, a surprising number also work as engineers, musicians, journalists, and information technology specialists. Some are in professional services (accounting, law, finance).

There has been a brewing controversy in Hong Kong, to which many of us in the Philippines are seldom aware of, that is, the right of abode that the Filipinos here have been fighting for years.

Right of Abode (ROA) refers to the Hong Kong law on the right to land in Hong Kong; to be free from any condition of stay (including a limit of stay) there; to not be deported and not to be removed.

The statute bars the Chinese territory’s 200,000-odd foreign domestic workers from being covered by the law. Migrant groups in Hong Kong have been long asserting that the statute’s coverage is only one of Hong Kong’s many discriminatory acts against migrant workers.

What has driven Hong Kong residents to oppose the ROA?

Aside from the age-old problem of xenophobia, some critics have said granting residency to domestic helpers would strain the provision of health care, education, and public housing.

While other foreign nationals can obtain residency after working in Hong Kong for seven years, immigration rules exclude domestic helpers from seeking permanent residency.

Human rights lawyers and many domestic helpers argue that this is discriminatory. Permanent residency means that a person can remain in Hong Kong indefinitely, vote, and stand in elections.

But some politicians and commentators warned that allowing foreign domestic helpers to have permanent residency would allow them to bring their children and other relatives to the city, who would require education and housing.

With an average of five members per family, can you imagine 150,000 Pinoys bringing their grandmas and children to the highly sophisticated and rich beyond imagination former Crown Colony, now one of the most prosperous cities on the planet?

The Hongkongers estimate that half a million Pinoys would eagerly come over to embrace their kind of life.

Well, thanks to Evangeline Banao Vallejos, a Hong Kong resident since 1986, the court finally ruled in her favor, allowing her to stay.

“In late September, Justice Johnson Lam Man-hon declared in the High Court that the exclusion of foreign workers from the rule that allows foreigners to apply for the right to settle in the city after seven years of uninterrupted residence was found unconstitutional,” the headline story in the South China Morning Post (SCMP) said Friday.

But that is not the real surprise. Instead of the feared flood of migrants from the Philippines to join their relatives in Hong Kong, there was but a trickle of applicants, wanting to abandon their easy-going life in the Philippine countryside, living behind friends and their familiar surroundings and way of life.

Eni Lestati, a spokesperson for the Asian Migrant’s Coordinating body, said: “A few months on from the ruling, it is proven that not so many of us are excited to be Hong Kong permanent residents.”

Out of about 125,000 to 150,000 Pinoys in Hong Kong, there was a total of 334 applications received by the government, according to Lee Wai-king, vice chairperson of the Democratic Alliance for the Betterment and Progress in Hong Kong.

“The latest figures obtained by the SCMP showed that the number of applications for verification and eligibility for a permanent identity card between October and December are, respectively, 148,334, and 149.

A cartoon in the SCMP depicts two old residents, humped over their desk job. One guy says: “The thing is, foreign domestic helpers do the jobs the rest of us don’t really want to do.” The other replies; “Yeah? Well, where are they now?”

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