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Filipino workers aborad sometimes put personal lives on hold for the sake of their families, says the following article.

by Kalinga Seneviratne

Singapore: Almost immediately after she came here to take up her job as a domestic worker, Janet's husband back home in the Philippines moved in with another woman. Since then, her mother has looked after the couple's two children.

In 2000, the family began to worry that Janet's younger son was hanging around drug addicts, but her elder son entered college in 2001 to study marine technology.

Through much of the twists and turns of her family's life, 34-year-old Janet has been way from the Philippines, but she says she has come to terms with the physical distance from her teenage sons. But while she is physically in another country, much of her energies in terms of sticking to her work and her future goals remain directed toward home.

As for her personal life here, Janet, who married at 15 and had two children by the time she was 18, has had a few boyfriends in Singapore, though she says she does not want to marry anyone.

Janet says she may be here for a few more years to see her children through university. Then, she will go back home with some savings.

Looking back to her life before in the Philippines, she says it was very different from her life now. "In the Philippines life was boring, I depended on mum for everything. I came here because I wanted to be independent, have fun'.

But 'at the same time I wanted to help in my kids' education', explains Janet, one among some 70,000 Filipinos doing domestic work in this city state of four million people.

uncommon

Janet's story is not too uncommon. Indeed, many Filipino domestic workers grapple with adjusting to life apart from their families, including seeing marriages break up and children grow up without their presence.

Father Angel Luciano, chaplain for Filipino migrants in Singapore, says that infidelity happening when one spouse is in a foreign land is something he has come across time and again in the course of his work among 30 Catholic churches across Singapore that serve the Filipino community.

He adds that with the mother outside the Philippines and the father busy with his work - and perhaps his other woman - the children have at times gone astray, some even becoming drug addicts.

education

For 39-year-old Catherine Co, even her husband's infidelity back home has not deterred her from working here to send money home for her children's education. When she came to work here in 1990, her two daughters and son were very young the eldest six and the youngest just one year old.

Her eldest daughter, now 18, is taking a tourism course in university and working part-time in a department store in Manila.

Her husband, who was a drug addict, moved in with another woman after Catherine left for Singapore and both of them now live the same house with Catherine's children.

'Last year when I had money, I made the house up nicely for them. Every month I send money directly to the children and recently when my husband had a stroke, I helped him with expenses,' explains Catherine.

She has gone back to the Philippines thrice, on two-week holidays, since coming here to work.

'I have to work here until all my children finish their studies,' she says.

The determination to stay on here for their families' sake - and putting their personal lives on hold - also seems to be a common thread among foreign domestic workers.

Take the case of Judith, who holds a double degree in science and commerce and education and who has been a domestic worker in Singapore for 10 years, earning around US$200 a month. Before coming here, she worked as a teacher in the Philippines for 10 years.

salary

'The salary of a teacher in the Philippians is 3,200 pesos (US$64) a month. My husband was also a teacher, but.... our (combined) income wans't enough to pay for the house, food, clothing, education of our children,' Judith said in an interview.

'I came here for the future of my children, at lest to give them a good education'.

Her elder daughter, 22, has just graduated with a degree in accounting management and now works at the governor's office in a central Philippine city, Bacolod. Her 16-year-old daughter is in university.

'It's been worth it coming here and working, otherwise I wouldn't have been able to give a good education to my children,' says Judith.

'I'm looking forward to the future of my children, not myself'.

The importance she puts on this was such that she was able to cope with the difficulties that came with adjusting to work here.

'The first three weeks I came here, it was horrible. She (my employer) shouted here and there, "Quick, quick, hurry up. Do it this way. You stupid, stupid".

We are not brought up that way. We are a soft-spoken people', Judith says, recalling her initial experience with her employer.

For many Singaporean families, having Filipino domestic workers also brings an additional benefit. Because a good number of them hold university degrees from back home, many Filipino workers also act as tutors to their young wards, checking up on their homework after school when the mother returns home late from work.

migrant

Some may call such migrant labour flows professionally exploitative, and others may even argue that having mothers sacrificing for the greater good of the family is gender discrimination.

For many Filipinos here such questions are best left unanswered, since their main concern is the economic survival of their families back home.

But Mariam Cuasay, labour attache at the Philippine embassy here, says that one cannot make an issue out of highly qualified Filipinos coming here to work as domestic workers because there simply are not enough jobs available in the Philippines.

Father Luciano agrees that poverty back home is the push factor for Filipinos coming here for domestic work. But he argues that fellow members of the Association of South-East Asian Nations (ASEAN) must work out some form of standard wages across the region.

remove

This, he says, would help remove the need for their nationals to work overseas in huge numbers - more than 800,000 Filipinos leave every year to work in foreign countries.

'This will make it unnecessary for people to move abroad to work, thus breaking up families,' he explains.

Indeed, Luciano encourages Filipino workers to also save for the time they go back home so they can lead independent lives.

'I tell them here, please save and don't send all the money to the Philippines,' he says.

Luciano's advice to the domestic workers in this: In your first two-year contract, pay off your debts, and in the next two years, save as much as you can.

For the third term, save everything and get as much capital and skills as you can for the eventual return home to begin some business.

To this end, he has helped set up vocational training programmes in churches here. These courses are usually conducted on Sundays, when most domestic workers have their days off.

'These skills are for development and personal enrichment, not qualifications for jobs,' explains Benjamin Manalo, a Filipino information-technology professional who coordinates the training programme at the Novena Catholic church here.

business

Catherine already plans to set up her own business with money saved here and has completed courses on her weekly day off in typing, baking, cooking sewing and business studies. Currently, she is doing a beautician's course.

'If my children finish their higher studies I will be very proud of myself', says Catherine, who plans to return to the Philippines in three years.

As for herself, Catherine says she has received marriage proposals from many Singaporean men, but turned them down.

'I don't want to get married, I want to be a good mother to my children'.

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Copyright 2001 The Associated Newspapers of Ceylon Ltd.
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