Filipino women abroad outnumber men

Filipino women abroad outnumber men

More and more female OFWs from the provinces

Only Bataan, Pampanga and Zambales had more male land-based overseas workers than females.

Editor's Note: The following is an article prepared by the Institute for Migration and Development Issues in the Philippines.

On the national aggregate, females who worked and settled overseas have outnumbered males.

The same gender trend is true when looking at the provinces of origin of overseas Filipinos, as local development in the countryside has an overseas Filipina's face.

Philippine Overseas Employment administration data on overseas workers from 2004 to 2007 shows that 33 provinces have more female land- and sea-based migrant workers than male counterparts, compared to 18 provinces that had more male migrant workers than females, says a policy brief by a nonprofit organization.

These include all the provinces belonging to the Ilocos region and in the Cordillera Administrative Region, writes a policy brief on overseas Filipinos by gender in the provinces released by the Institute for Migration and Development Issues (IMDI).

Some 21 other provinces, meanwhile, had years that there were more female migrant workers than males and vice versa-with no clear trend which gender has more migrant workers over the four-year period, says the policy brief (which can be downloaded at http://depositfiles.com/files/sscex7wj5).

An overwhelming 76 of 78 provinces with data had more female than male emigrants and permanent residents, reveals a 27-year dataset on this group of migrants coming from the Commission on Filipinos Overseas.

Only Aklan and Tawi-Tawi had more male than female permanent residents and emigrants, reveals IMDI's policy brief (written by Dawn Naisa Majaducon).

The provinces that had more female than male overseas workers and permanent residents come from provinces with high and low poverty incidence levels.

Government data segregates overseas Filipinos as land- and sea-based (the latter is included because the Philippines is the world's leading supplier of merchant marine fleet).

But looking at total land-based workers per province alone by gender, 73 of 76 provinces with data show that females outnumber male land-based workers.

Only Bataan, Pampanga and Zambales had more male land-based overseas workers than females.

IMDI wrote that women overseas Filipinos have contributed “a lot of resources quietly yet visibly, and have helped improve their birth provinces' quality of life.”

On the other hand, the institute said these contributions by overseas Filipinas are “not without a cost” since females are vulnerable to human rights abuses”.

IMDI's policy brief on overseas Filipinos in the provinces by gender can be downloaded in this link: http://depositfiles.com/files/sscex7wj5

OFW home

The OFWs arrived at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport at 3 p.m. on board Etihad Airlines flight EY428 from Abu Dhabi.

Aside from Marcos, those who were repatriated were Annabel Cernal, 38, of Las Piñas; Zenaida Calanda, 34, of Davao City; Nomeria Gandingan, 34, Zamboanga, Sibugay Province; Cheryl Marie Cabuata, 28, Solano, Nueva Ecija; Ma. Magdalena Mendoza, 45, of Quezon City; Rose Ann Tagalog, 19, San Pablo City, Laguna; Almie Salcedo, 22, of Cotabato City; Maricel Hermosa, 26 and Michelle Operania, 26, both of Olongapo City; Maricel Triste, 26, of Tarlac; Marianne Sabado, 30, of Quezon City; Dolly Ortouste, 28, of Zamboanga City and Eulie Seterra, 31, of Makati City, Juna Arabes, 40, of Misamis Occidental; Wenna Bacasmot, 42, of Pasig City; Rowena Gonzales, 25, of Tarlac City; Edna Guintibano, 27, of Negros Occidental; Lucielyn Dizon, 34, of Quezon City and Noraima Abidin, 23, of Maguindanao.

Four of them were raped and forced into prostitution.

OFWs welcome suspension of POEA rules on direct hiring

Migrant workers Saturday welcomed the indefinite suspension of new government guidelines on direct hiring of overseas Filipino workers.

The leftist group Migrante International attributed to “OFW Power” the indefinite suspension by the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration's of its Memorandum Circular 4 (MC-04), which, among others, required foreign employers to post up to $8,000 in repatriation and performance bonds for each Filipino worker they hired.

“This is the result of the united protest of OFWs around the world and that of our families in the Philippines. We sustained the campaign and were not deceived by the promise of protection of MC-04 nor of the tricky exemption,” said Samahan Laban sa Katiwalian ng mga Recruitment Agencies at Patakarang MC-04, a coalition against the POEA rule.

“Filipino migrant workers claim victory over the POEA’s MC-04. This is the result of the united protest of OFWs around the world and that of our families in the Philippines,” said Dolores Balladares, chair of Migrante's Hong Kong chapter, the United Filipinos in Hong Kong (Unifil)..

In Manila, the Center for Migrant Advocacy said it hoped the government had “learned its lesson” in the need to consult the OFW sector before imposing a “burdensome” regulation such as MC-04.

“MC-04 did not look good to OFWs not only because of its being tedious, drastic, and costly but also it seemed to them that the government does not want to have the responsibility of bailing out OFWs in distress,” CMA executive director Ellene Sana told the INQUIRER.

Sana said the OFW groups would be willing to sit down with the POEA to craft regulations that would "really" extend protection to OFWs, particularly the directly-hired.

“The process of making rules should be transparent and participatory. If we keep on promoting a labor-export policy, we should be ready for distressed migrants. So the government must touch base with OFWs communities and hear from them how their welfare may be best protected,” she said.

POEA suspended the guidelines on February 14, “until further orders,” less than a month after they were implemented. In suspending the guidelines, the POEA cited President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo's directives to relax rules on hiring white-collar OFWs and the need to deliberate further on the matter. By Jerome Aning - Philippine Daily Inquirer