Empowering the Philippines' diaspora

10% of Filipinos live and work overseas

By Bethan Jinkinson BBC News Online

The signing into law on Thursday of a bill allowing the Philippines' diaspora to vote marks a significant boost to the country's millions of overseas workers.

Between four and five million of the estimated 7.4 million overseas workers scattered across the globe will be eligible to vote in next year's presidential elections.

We are propping up the economy, so it is only right that we should be more involved in domestic politics

Expat Filipina Bong Forouzan

As 10% of Filipinos live and work overseas, this is a landmark change in the Philippines political landscape.

"This is long overdue," said one such expatriate, Bong Forouzan, the editor of London-based newspaper the Philippine Observer.

"For as long as I can remember, overseas Filipinos have been clamouring for the right to vote," she told BBC News Online.

With an annual contribution to the Philippines of at least $6bn dollars, overseas remittances are worth more than agriculture to the economy.

"We are propping up the economy, so it is only right that we should be more involved in domestic politics," said Ms Forouzan.

The diaspora is scattered across the world, with more than two million people based in the United States and 1.5 million in the Middle East.

There are also large communities in Japan, Hong Kong and Taiwan.

They work largely in low-paid and low-skilled work - from sugar factories in Sudan to domestic service in the Middle East.

Others fill recruitment shortages in hospitals and nursing homes.

Filipinos started migrating in large numbers after World War II.

During the Marcos era, political dissidents joined the population of economic migrants.

With high literacy rates (87%) and good English speaking ability, Filipinos are arguably the country's greatest export.

Assimilation

Lowell Baricanosa of the Centre for Filipinos in London said that as a people, the Filipinos are great travellers.

"They are very good at assimilating into their host societies. Filipinos are quite unique like that," he said.

Overseas migration effectively mops up a labour surplus in the Philippines, keeping unemployment levels within the country under control.

Every day hundreds of young Filipinos arrive at the Overseas Employment Administration Office in Manila, hoping for a better life.

"They say there is no place like home, but given a chance to work abroad for better pay and better conditions, I don't think anyone would stay in their own country," said Greg Fernandez, who emigrated to the UK to work in the hotel trade.

But not everyone has a success story.

Tales of abuse and exploitation amongst overseas workers abound. Every year there are cases of maids being killed by ,or even killing, their employers.

Julieta works in a textile factory in Taiwan, where conditions are typically exploitative.

"It's really very hard, you only have a 15 minute break to eat... they gave me a contract to sign which said you can never have a day off in three years, " she told the BBC.

"Never in my wildest dreams would I allow my children to come abroad and work," she said.

Many Filipinos have to leave their children behind when they go abroad.

Partly because of this, and partly because of the great emphasis placed on religious and social life by Filipinos, communities overseas are tight-knit and relatively cohesive.

"Of course we miss our families in the Philippines, but we stay in close contact so even though we live abroad, we still feel very much part of the country," said Mr Fernandez.