Rodel J. Ramos – email: ramos123@rogers.com
OFWs expect to remit more than $20 billion dollars in 2011 and will keep on growing. It sustains the economy; bring much needed dollar without which the Philippines will collapse. Such is the power of OFWs yet we do not realize it or if we do, we don’t know how to harness it to bring about the much needed change in the Philippines to uplift the country from poverty, injustice, crimes, corruption, and many other major problems. Perhaps we should brain storm on how we can force the government and its people to change for the better. A lot of this money goes to the pocket of the rich business people who owns the malls, manufacturers, wholesalers, retailers, service providers, banks, remittance companies, to the government and the pockets of corrupt officials.
Families of OFW left behind benefit from these remittances and therefore can afford to buy more products and services including luxuries items. They can have their much needed home renovation, buy properties, start a business, invest in stocks, and send their children and siblings to better schools, buy food, medicine, clothing, furniture, appliances, electronic gadgets and games including vices – jueteng, smokes, drugs, casino, mistress, vacations etc. It benefits the entire economy. It fuels progress even in the most remote towns. The malls, restaurants, and resorts all over are full and so with schools, groceries, markets. Constructions are everywhere.
The government benefits in taxes, fees and much needed dollar to pay for imports and foreign debts. These remittances also feed their greed, lust and hunger for power. They do not have to worry on generating jobs and business opportunities. Immigration also becomes the vent, without which a social volcano will explode into a bloody revolution from poverty and injustice.
But do we wonder why the countries that export human labor remain poor while the importing countries are progressively rich?
Human talents are the greatest resources in the world, a lot more than natural resources. They are the generators of ideas that can create more jobs and products and they too are captive consumers of products and services. Their children and grand children also consume goods and services. When people leave a country, you lose the consumers of your products and services. You also lose the skills, talents, and years of experience, the manpower that man the industries and the ideas they generate. The government loses tax payers.
The countries which import these manpower and talents like Canada, the U.S. Europe, Middle East and even Asian countries are the bigger winners in this immigration game. It is cheaper to import skilled, educated and even unskilled immigrants many of which have growing children than raise children from birth. In rich countries, people are lazy to give birth and raise children or do not want that great responsibility and just want to enjoy life. It is too taxing and to them a waste of time, effort and money. It cost a lot of money to give birth and raise a child aside from the headaches and troubles and it takes time and effort.
Also new immigrants fill the needs of the country for manpower, talents, skills, ideas and bring in the tax which pays for pensions, healthcare and needs of the growing number of seniors.
They can screen and pick the best applicants, the cream of the crop of the third world. More immigrants mean increase in the market for their products and services and more people to pay taxes, licenses, fees and buy homes.
Immigration has also become a milking cow with government charging high fees for new comers to enter the country. Even schools take advantage of immigrants. They do not recognize our education and want us to go to school again in spite of our expertise, professions and experiences and pay tuition before we can practice. And we take over jobs Canadians do not want at a cheaper salary so they maintain their edge of competitiveness with other countries with such cheap labor.
In Canada, Churches are being invigorated by the influx of immigrants and so are groceries, department stores, car dealers, housing developments, banks, and every major business.
Unfortunately, the education, skills, expertise, experiences and talents of these people are not recognized and not fully used and they end up as caregivers, taxi drivers and other manual labors. It is a waste of talents. Imagine doctors, engineers, teachers and even accountants working as clerks and washing dishes in McDonald and Tim Horton.
On the other hand, there is a heavy price to pay for those benefits. Immigration separates parents from children, husband and wife specially the Live-in Caregiver Program who has to work as caregiver for two years before they can apply of immigrant status. The worse happens with unskilled contract workers who work for four years and go home without the chance to be immigrants. This creates a lot of negative impact on the children who are deprived of their parent’s guidance, love and presence. Raising children is not all about money.
When they get back together again, they feel like strangers to each other. Children are left with the mother or father, grandparents or simply unschooled maids and relatives. Because of the loneliness and lack of love and guidance, some children find love from others and indulge in early sex, vices such as drugs, alcohol, smoking and gambling. Teenage pregnancies, addiction, depression, problems in school and even crime increases.
The separation breaks the family apart and the loneliness sometimes results in adultery, depression and divorce. Both partners many times can’t resist temptations human as they are and indulge in extra marital relationship.
Some partners, parents, siblings and children who are left behind become lazy and dependent knowing they are receiving dollars every month for their habits and become parasites. Farms are left idle, hospitals close for lack of doctors and nurses, people get inefficient services. Other industries and even government offices break down due to lack of skilled workers. Incompetence and corruption now prevails in many offices.
Not all who go abroad succeed and earn a lot of money. Many also fall into the low income jobs such as caregivers and factory workers. Some are abused by their employers, victims of recruiters and immigration consultants. Some become prostitutes and victims of criminals. Others work two or three jobs just to maintain their apartment rentals and the house where their families live.
It is a brain drain on the Philippines side because the best are being lured by big bucks and greater opportunities overseas. It reduces the available manpower to man the industries. The market for local products and services also decreases. Fortunately, poor countries like the Philippines produce more babies which compensate for the lost manpower. But raising them cost a lot of money, time and efforts.
Those who migrate with their families suffer from cultural shock, racial discrimination, can’t use their full potentials and are relegated to work in lower paying jobs. To add to this, we discriminate against each other instead of helping one another. We badmouth our fellow countryman and make it harder for them to survive in a country away from their families and friends as if we don’t want them to improve on their lives or perhaps we are afraid they will have a better life than ours. Some illegal are reported to the authorities.
We do not understand the power of unity and still have the kanya kanya attitude, the crab mentality, the indifference and apathy for the needs of others and the community.
While we are lucky to have a good healthcare system and a retirement pension in Canada, we heavily pay for it in taxes and deductions. We almost pay 50% of our income to gain these privileges. With the prices of gasoline, food and housing and the losses of thousands of jobs, and the collapse of the housing market in the U.S. expect more hardship to come for new immigrants.
But if you fully analyze the whole situation, the main loser is the country where the new immigrants come from. Take the Philippines for example exports more than 1 million workers every year. Think about that market being taken away by the importing country. You wonder why there are so many empty houses just manned by maids or elderly parents, of idle farms and fishponds, of factories being closed because workers are going abroad, of the lack of maids and cheaper labor.
Ultimately, countries who export their manpower are the losers. The greatest resources of a country are its people. America for example relies on the great ideas and inventions of its people. Without their workers, who will man their factories, till their fields, cut timbers, work in their banks and offices?
It is a brain drain. The young people who are trained in different fields such as engineering, IT, medicine, and other technologies are a great waste to that country. It is good if their talents are made to use in the country they go to, but quite often, they are not.
And these people feel degraded, used and some become depressed. Their potentials are not maximized. The sufferings and pains that go with being separated from your families and friends are so great.
The country that exports their people gets only a small percentage of his/her salary. For example, an immigrant makes $2,000 U.S. a month. He only sends $200 - $300 dollars to his family and relatives in the Philippines. He spends most of that money for rent, food, clothing, transportation, etc. If he works in the Philippines, he spends his entire salary there and pays taxes on it so the country benefits. And he is close to his family. Of course we are talking about income in dollars.
But the exporting country looses a market for its product and eventually the loyalty of their citizens and their children who adapt the new country’s citizenship, lifestyle and culture.
The Philippine government should review this policy of pursuing the export of our valuable human resources.
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