SINCE FLOR Contemplacion’s death 23 years ago, migrants and their families have become restive of broken vows re-echoed from one regime to another. Under the Duterte rule, the precarious situation of overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) has gone from bad to worse. Filipino workers are continuously sold to foreign markets as commodities.
Through a more institutionalized and systematized labor export program, the Duterte regime has mastered the skill of pimping out the Philippines’ massive unemployed labor pool to foreign countries salivating after cheap and docile workers. His deployment ban campaign against Kuwait and the Middle East is just another trick to assuage the growing resentment among OFWs who know very well that they are just going to be peddled to other countries. He heralds himself as the champion of migrants’ rights to conceal the record-high number of deaths and abuses of his administration.
Recent spike in the prices of commodities due to Duterte’s TRAIN, amidst growing unemployment and the prevalence of contractual work, has aggravated the misery of millions of Filipinos.
The promise of ending “endo” (labor contractualization) did not materialize and the dominance of corporate interests prevailed. Forced migration has banished large numbers of our countrymen risking life and limbs even to the farthest ends of the earth to salvage their loved ones from starvation and abject poverty.
Many endure racism and discrimination while innumerable others are subjected to maltreatment, rape and torture from the hands of their employers. Generations of Filipinos have grown accustomed to the news of OFWs arriving in the airport sealed inside caskets.
Worse, we are terribly shaken by the murderous rampage perpetrated by the regime’s death squads which has claimed thousands of lives even from among the children of OFWs. Families of migrants are beleaguered by killings of OFWs overseas and their families back home. There is no doubt that Duterte’s lethal reign of terror has unleashed the most terrible agony to the migrant sector.
Duterte’s fraudulent negotiation with foreign governments to forge agreements on respect for migrants’ rights and improving the treatment of Filipinos abroad is sheer hypocrisy since it runs contradictory to his fascist campaign of bloodshed towards the poor, families of OFWs, the lumads, and against human rights defenders. In his efforts of criminalizing dissent, Duterte erroneously believes that Filipinos will just yield into submission and shrink in fear.
Our collective strength as a people can defeat the state’s aggression. With iron-will, Filipinos wherever they are, will stand firm and contend with the murderous forces of evil. – ARMAN HERNANDO, chairperson, Migrante Philippines
