Suffer the Women

They came home from Lebanon by the planeload – mostly women, some children. And President Arroyo exploited the publicity opportunities that came with them by being at the airport like the caring mother and head of the family that she wants to project of herself.  On cue, she ordered the rest of the 30,000 OFWs home within two weeks at the cost of P2B to make sure that there would be “zero casualty”!

Ensuring “zero casualty” is another whimsical situation as detached from reality as the illusion of this nation as an Enchanted Kingdom of Super Regions under her governance. For there had already been thousands of casualties suffered in this avowed policy of the national government to export our women mainly as domestic helpers.

Still,  after all the photo ops and declarations for the “modern heroes” and even before 30%  of our overseas workers could be successfully repatriated back to the country,  the insensitive Arroyo government announced with glee that  henceforth, foreign employers can avail of the services of “Super Maids”, made in the Philippines, no less!

No, it evidently doesn’t matter to the Arroyo government that jobs overseas for “Super Maids” only earn a measly $150-$200  (P7,000 – P11,000) – if lucky to get paid. From all accounts of the returning evacuees, most of our women are virtually treated like labor slaves and worse for some, as sex slaves. And, instead of apologizing for failing to provide adequate opportunities for work and livelihood, the Arroyo government now wants to further maximize the potential of Filipino women as household help overseas through cutesy marketing blips.

    It’s downright revolting that our government would even hear nothing of the fact that normal family lives are disrupted or broken, separation and loneliness are suffered, trust and loyalties are severely tested, debts are enviably incurred, for as long as their potential as dollar earners are pushed to the max.

If our government is a thinking-feeling institution and if it had the unselfish initiative to take its executive and legislative functions seriously and humanely as far as it takes, these women could have earned these salaries without leaving the safety of their homes, and of these shores.

Grandmothers, mothers, daughters need not leave home to work in foreign homes to be labeled as Super Maids and end up eating the leftovers of their foreign masters, and to sleep with their masters’ equally foreign dogs.

What they need are more and equal work opportunities to help fend for their families, not overseas but here in our country.

Our country needs our Super Mothers and Super Daughters here where they are safe and can be comfortable. But President Arroyo is not listening. She’s too focused on the dollar sign.   

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