Filipina in the Global World - by: Carlos Yu

FACTS:
 From “The Straits Times”, Singapore, July 14, 2003, the number of Filipina maids in Hongkong dropped from 140,400 at the end of March to 133,570 in late May – decline of 5%. Remittances of the 7.5 million Filipinos who work abroad – more than 70% are women mostly maids reached US$ 6 billion last year.
 From “The Washington Post”, more than 34,000 Washington area’s Philippine born residents work in a wide range of professions: doctors, pentagon leaders, civil rights activists, director of the annual global summit of women, elected officials, and nurses.
ISSUES:
There are various researches made in studying the Filipinas in the global world. Articles, such as “Filipinos in Global Migrations: At home in the World?” by Filomeno V. Aguilar Jr., “Maid to Order” by Jonathan Rowe, and many write-ups from different newspaper around the world, discussed where are the Filipinas now and the effect of globalization in their lives and families.
There are two very important issues which concern global women especially Filipina: care drain and global heart transplant. Filipina household workers, in other words, are prototypical global women. Third world countries are undergoing a care drain. The first world countries once extracted the third world countries’ rubber, oil, and gold; now it extracts parental affection as well. Today as love and care become the new gold, third world children pay the price. Migration has become a “dark child’s burden” and their mother’s burden as well.
A collective global heart transplant is an image that suggests something about the recipients as well as the donors. It is as if the wealthy parts of the world are running short on precious emotional and sexual resources and have had to turn to poorer regions for fresh supplies.
Another effect of globalization is the increasing number of Filipinas going into prostitution. The internet opens their connection to a larger market which would help them earn bigger money to sustain their needs. There was a TV commercial showing how a parent sells her daughter’s body to male foreigners and tells the child that she will be paid if she takes her clothes off. Aside from this, globalization serves as a factor that influences Filipinas to go into prostitution as it liberalizes their minds to various ideas on prostitution.

Also, an effect of globalization is the “working moms.” This changed the idea of Filipinas as “housewives.” Mothers started to work to help his husband raise their family or worse, she’s the only one who’s supporting their family. An example of this is the TV commercial aired last Christmas which shows a mother working on a call center who wishes to see her children on Christmas Eve. Other examples are the domestic helpers abroad who are not able to provide the needs of their children. Thus, what the children often receive is love seen on material gifts and not the traditional maternal love.

Although globalization, along with modernization liberalized Filipinas and produced bad effects on the society, there are also advantages that were brought by globalization to Filipinas. Because of globalization, women’s potentials are given attention and are developed. They are given the chance to discover and use their potentials optimally. They have proven their worth to the society. Furthermore, just like in a TV commercial, the gifts of globalization such as technology gave young Filipinas another way of expressing their selves and that is through cell phones and the internet.