FOR DECADES now, the Philippines has used the global order to export its excess labor, and to gain access to more high value jobs.
I am talking, of course, about nurses and seafarers, etc., not to mention the very many Filipinos who want to become hyphenated Filipinos.
In a de-globalized world, however, I think these things will end. There will still be Filipino seafarers, nurses and laborers working abroad, but I think they will grow smaller and smaller.
The same is true for Filipino emigrants. In a world where countries have already begun to disengage, there will be a vanishingly smaller need for outside labor, not only because those local economies have changed but also because of local politics.
Take the coronavirus, for example. It has made travel more difficult, which in turn has reduced foreign jobs, albeit temporarily.
Now, consider the effects of the Ukraine War or the current situation in China or the low political instability all throughout Europe and the United States. All of these things will not only reduce demand for Filipino overseas labor, it can also make countries unwelcome to immigration.
Furthermore, many non-Western countries are becoming more and more nationalistic. India and Indonesia, for example, have banned food exports shortly after the start of the Ukraine War, in order to protect their own people. These two countries are only the start. I believe more countries will become more nationalistic in the future out of necessity, which isn’t conducive to foreign jobs and immigration.
Many Filipinos will see this as something terrible, perhaps something to be angry at. But why should we be angry at foreign countries being nationalistic? Aren’t we nationalistic? So why shouldn’t we reciprocate by accepting that they have their own interests?
The world is already facing recession and a food crisis. In the long term, it’ll be facing a demographic crisis as well. In such a situation, we will have to rediscover what it means to be self-sufficient as a country.
We will have to face a world were easy travel and migration is no longer a norm, and expect the possibility that many Hyphenated Filipinos will be forced to come back here.
We will also need to face a world wherein nothing is certain in the international scene.
In a de-globalized world, those are the challenges that the Philippines must face./PN
