THE APPEARANCE of a news item in Al-Jazeera last June 27 on the auctioning off of maids in a Singaporean mall raised predictable reactions from the Philippine government and its Akbayan allies.
In effect, they under-reacted by speciously condemning the form but not the essence of reprehensible practices by placement agencies in the “Lion City”, and by doing so are trying to deflect the issue from the bigger crime of systematic labor exportation of Filipinos. They want to remain blameless in the public eye while continuing to feed needy Filipino compatriots to the lions.
Singapore placement agencies are known to be some of the most predatory in East Asia and operate in one of the most liberalized economies in the region. They overcharge job entrants unscrupulously, and systematically circumvent foreign worker quotas by faking their client’s employment credentials, often with virtual impunity.
They also conduct competitive underbidding when vying for prospective employers, in effect pushing down the mean wage of foreign domestic workers (FDWs) in Singapore. Many FDWs have also complained of placement agencies deducting the monthly employer levy of S$265 from their wages, as part of an unwritten “sweetener” clause in its discounted hiring packages that has led to many FDWs receiving only S$350 of the agreed monthly minimum of S$600.
Such unconscionable profiteering practices by placement agencies in Singapore have been occurring for many years now, and cannot but be known to the Philippine government through its embassy in the country. All this time, it has been looking the other way even as it sends out Filipino domestics to Singapore in increasing numbers.
This makes its declaration of “looking into the matter” hollow-sounding, if not downright ludicrous. Expressions of outrage by Akbayan Partylist Congressman Walden Bello are just as asinine, as these merely focus on tighter regulation of placement agencies in Singapore and not in eliminating labor export as a policy of the Philippine government that Akbayan currently supports.
There is much that is lamentable about the situation of migrant workers in Singapore, upon which much of the its economic wealth stands. But the Aquino government has been much more liable by knowingly deploying Filipino workers into countries that have sordid track records on human rights, as part of its bull-headed adherence to the World Bank’s policy prescription of leveraging remittances for “development”, even at the cost of human rights and long-term economic progress for the country.
What the Aquino government and its Akbayan allies should do is to look around in their own backyard, and reflect on the irony of a supposedly “improving” economy that still cannot seem to create the kind of jobs and livelihood opportunities that are enough to keep its valuable human resources within the country. Crying “wolf” at every instance of migrant abuses abroad may be good politics especially in the run up to national elections, but it is a pathetic substitute for a critical reevaluation of the Philippine government’s long-standing program of peddling its citizen’s all over the globe for a bag of silver.
The Philippine government does not have the mandate to change state policies in Singapore, but it does have the mandate to change its own policies at home. In this regard, the Asia Pacific Mission for Migrants (APMM) urges the Aquino administration to change its anti-migrant bias by adopting pro-people economic policies that will lead to the elimination of forced labor migration in the country.
Asia Pacific Mission for Migrants
Office Address: G/F, No.2 Jordan Road, Kowloon, Hong Kong SAR
(apmm@hknet.com)
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