elnomada.org-the workers
It is seven in the evening and dark. The roads of Manila are all cars, lights and people. You may be on your way to a dinner or an event with a driver that is paid to deal with the traffic while you doze or chat in the back of the car. However, it is more likely that you are one of the 9 in 10 workers desperately trying to reach home in a faraway neighborhood where lodging is affordable. Never mind how long it takes to get there. Local transport is notoriously overcrowded, steaming hot and painfully slow. The workers of Manila slumber while commuting the hours of sleep they lack every night. But there is more than just napping through your trip home. Exposed to abominable levels of pollution, they still have a private life, not for long though. After few hours the way back to the rich neighborhoods of Makati and Taguig starts again.
Ann is rather capable. Yet, she maintains that she cannot think. “My head does not work, you see?” she complains. She explains that the lack of food and schooling of her broken childhood in the outskirts of Davao made her mentally limited.
Ann is small in size probably because of childhood malnutrition, yet she scrubs the 200 sq m house and does the laundry of five people silently. Orphaned at 9 years old, she left school and never received any formal education. From that time, Anne sold corn that she carried on a tray over her head on the streets of Davao. She migrated to Manila at 18 (it is illegal to employ minors in Philippines…). “This is why I cannot think, that tray smashed my head and my brain shrunk” she concludes.
Ann represents the image of the average worker in Manila. She had a childhood of hardship and unfairness. She suffered family and social abandon. And yet, far from showing the bitterness of a lost life, she sees to convert my residence into the paradise that every afternoon it becomes once her task is done.
The luxury of a clean house, washed laundry, arranged furniture and gadgets, dusted surfaces and discarded garbage comes at 300$ a month.
I have been living in Manila for two years – and yes, I must call myself an „expat“. I may actually hate it but this is the truth and I should call it by its name.
Expats, that is rich migrants, are very easily comforted by stereotypes such as “expats generate many jobs in poorer countries by hiring local staff”.
On the other hand, rich Filipinos that according to NSCB standards, (Philippines official census authority) amount to only 20.000 families or 0.1% of the national population, hire thousands of employees that are paid a fraction of a western company salary and who get no benefits.
Compared with the benefits rich Filipinos have to offer, the western employees get a very fair package. However, lets not forget that it is a convenience of affairs: in the western world nobody could afford such services without being called to court as a XXI human trader. And, most expats, at least in philanthropic circles in Manila belong to the western world.
To be precise, a rich Filipino officially is one who earns around 4000$ a month, owns three air conditioning units, at least three cars and is a top executive, business owner or a Government official. That by any standards is the equivalent of western wealth; in Madrid, Athens or Lisbon you are wealthy with such monthly sum and commodities.
Maid/Yaya
SUYSUY MART – Manila
PHP 8,000 a month
Job Summary
Nanny duties will vary from nanny placement to nanny placement and household to household but almost all nanny jobs will involve an element of these typical nanny and child care tasks.
Responsibilities and Duties
bathing babies
supervising baths for older children
dressing children appropriate to the child’s activities
washing and ironing children’s clothes
planning meals for children
preparing meals and snacks for the children
supervising children’s meals
cleaning and washing up after children’s meals
shopping for children’s requirements
scheduling and coordinating children’s activities
transporting children to school and other activities
undertaking appropriate creative activities with the children
undertaking appropriate educational activities with the children
undertaking appropriate outdoor activities with the children
planning and supervising rest, bed and nap times
reading to and with the children
helping with homework
tidying children’s bedrooms and play areas
reinforcing appropriate discipline for the children
implementing daily routines
doing light housework
running errands
Qualifications and Skills
high school graduate
further training in child care and development such as a formal nanny training program, early childhood classes and/or in-service training is a PLUS
proven child care experience with references
First Aid and CPR certification is a PLUS
safety certification is a PLUS
Benefits
Stay-in
Free meal
13th monthpay
Job Type: Full-time
Salary: Php8,000.00 /month
Required education:
High school or equivalent
Required experience:
Yaya: 1 year
Required language: Tagalog
The tendency among expats (rich migrants, lets not forget) is to feel very different from the Filipino wealthy and maybe rightly so. Talking of modern slavery, rich Filipinos come to mind easily. Paying a maid 150$ a month with no holidays, maximum one day off per week (usually just a few hours to go to church twice a month) no benefits and living in substandard conditions is not something a European will easily accept.
But there are many similarities between westerners and rich Pinoys: wealth, higher education, benefits (perhaps we should call them privileges), housing and access to hospital in Philippines, long weekends at the islands and holidays in places such as Japan, Korea or Singapore obviously holidays in Europe or North America.
Most westerners will be reluctant to accept lavish details like three or more cars, several maids, or luxury birthday, Christmas or wedding parties. It may be far fetched to say helicopter commuting yet, it is available and rather popular. This is all because westerners believe that they are ambassadors of fairness and social equality that in the first place they were taught back home.
But is the average expat really doing any better ethically than a wealthy Filipino? And does he have the right to feel so different in moral terms? Living an expat life is a mixture of an adventure, a claim of justice and having material peace. The expat world is a full category of people that carries the foreign aid money of the wealthiest countries, (80% of aid being from EU, US and Scandinavia) and channels it to less favoured ones.
This is where I see the need for more compromise from expat communities. Expats work more than eight hours a day on average, are in general committed with the cause they work for and have degrees most people in the country where they work do not have.
However, This should not be a reason to forget that foreign aid is meant to help countries that should have the same level but lack the material means.
Still, expats consider it fair to earn the much they do and to have the privileges they do have (including a tax free life as much as in Philippines as back home).
Personally, I find it disturbing to earn a hundred times more than a poor Filipino and living in a villa with a pool when I know that people in the slums may sleep in shifts for lack of space in an empty stomach.
Expats also have a general tendency to forget that back home, it is normal to do the cleaning and grocery shopping on Saturdays and that kids would stay home and help with the errands while living in a normal apartment surrounded by neighbours that may as well be carpenters or lawyers. I find that all expats find easy and fast justifications for having maids, cooks, nannies and drivers for the price of an au-pair student on weekends back home. As much as they find good justified answers on why you have to live in a five star condo or in a 400m2 villa with swimming pool. Arguably, the price for such commodities will be affordable in the Philippines. However, no expat thinks about keeping the life standard he grew in at a cheaper price and use the remaining balance to contributing to the welfare of the local population.
This to me is the main common denominator between rich Filipinos and expats, the reason why no westerner should criticize a wealthy Filipino for commuting in a helicopter or exploiting their housemaids. I find that there is double moral in bringing development to a country while using its economic and social situation for one’s own comfort. It makes a difference when an expat gives proper allowances to his staff. However, it sets an ethical standard where you invest the money that fills the gap between you and another human being you came to help in the first place under a humanitarian, philanthropic or diplomatic banner.
Lets go back to Manila workers, in this case, Jonnah. Privately I can support her so that she gets electricity and water in her shack. I ensure that her family has enough mosquito nets and that she gets some extra education to stand on her own feet. Jonnah is a month younger than me, an excellent entrepreneur. She has a high school diploma and her English is good. The fact that she is poor defines the whole difference between her and me. She has to struggle to pay her daily life. I have to struggle to accommodate my holidays in my busy agenda. My daily life is assured in all luxury what allows me to take extra tuitions and learn a heap of things I can afford with the money I save from not having to pay a rent and so on. Besides, I get a much cheaper deal in Philippines.
Many expats get the righteous complex. Lets not forget that a large crunch of the budget for foreign aid returns home in the form of salaries for expats. Expats are not Robin Hoods but professionals that share as far as their status is not harmed.
Those are two of the big sicknesses of the XXI century that countries that have the economic means, the prosperity and the time to study and look at them should take into consideration to find real solutions and real examples to follow.
The worst is that while not wanting refugees or migrants at their doors westerners applaud the expat system in other countries as much as they are happy to be able to visit such places (like Philippines) for weeks for the same amount they would pay for a weekend in Majorca.
As far as westerners try to help the world without revising their own standards it will be difficult to criticize slavery, prostitution, child exploitation and so many other illnesses existing mainly in the poorer world. If you need to set up higher standards then they will have to apply to you as well. Otherwise, spend the money and let people in their poverty. At least the poor in the countries the west tries to help will not have to thank you for your crumbs.
