Sunday, March 23, 2008

OFWs

11 percent of the population of the Philippines are all around the world working as a contract worker. This number is still rising.
President GMA praised the Global Pinoy is helping the economy, raking in dollars. Men and women go abroad and earn better for their relatives back home. They are heroes.
This is the bright side but what about the darker side of the coin?
Yes, they earn money but what about the family left here. The children who, in their growing years, need their parent more than the money. Families are broken when this happens. Worse if one parent goes and the other is left to take care of the children.
I knew of two different people who's husbands were having extra marital affairs while the wife was away. When they came home, no more money, the guilty spouse left and the families are broken. "Sumakabilang-bahay" was the joking term given.
Broken families. That is one of the results of OFWs.

So many people studying nursing. People who are accountants, bankers and even doctors take up nursing and go to the States to work. What is a problem is when they do not go back. They petition their families to go there and they stay leaving their heritage behind. They vehemently proclaim their new nationality and forget there was even a country called Philippines.
What about people here in the Philippines? All our nurses, good or bad are leaving the hospitals. They lacked the passion of being a nurse, of helping people get better. They do it now for the money.

Can the good thing justify the bad side of OFWs? One can say that cases are subjective. We cannot judge a person's reasons for working abroad. Opportunities are wooing our countrymen and for the starved, dollars sounds better than our measly minimum.

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