Filipinos Here and Abroad..

A topsy-turvy economic status and political governance of our respective homeland are one of the main reasons why most people either low or high profile individuals choose to work abroad. Maybe few of which just want to experience a new environment but most of the reasons why people work abroad is basically a low- economic standing of their own country. Acknowledging Europe and middle-east countries as having a good economy standing with high-paying jobs, people would really get attracted of going abroad without being circumspective. The mere fact that they are well-developed countries, people from the third world countries would definitely dare to venture out to a strange world as those in order to experience a greener pasture.  

In August 2008, the World Bank showed their estimates of global poverty; accounting for the increased population between 1981 and 2005, the poverty rate has, however, fallen by about 25%. A few places around the world see increasing rates of growth in a positive sense. But globally, there is also a negative change in income distribution. The reality unfortunately is that the gap between the rich and poor is quite wide in most places. For example:

• About 0.13% of the world’s population controlled 25% of the world’s assets in 2004.
• The wealthiest 20% of the world’s population consumes 76.6% of the world’s goods while 80% of humanity gets the remainder.

Associated with that is the Low Wages – College education is expensive, parents really find it hard to pay tuition and school projects. When they get a job in the Philippines, these fresh graduates and even the old ones are not get compensated enough to equal their investments on education. That is why most Filipino workers acquire jobs abroad where wage is proportionate to education, skills, and experience. Even skilled professionals here grab the opportunity to work as housemaids, caregivers, construction workers and laborers to other countries as long as it is decent and high paying. 

Also, Low benefits- most of the companies in the Philippines especially Filipino owned companies don’t have good benefitss. Good thing, foreign-based companies give reasonable benefits to their workers especially BPO industries.

This reported statistics is a sad reality, some may not able to feel it but others do. Back in the Philippines, some families really had a hard time eating 3 meals a day. They even skip meals or just contented eating rice without viands on their plates. Babies were just fed by sticky-liquefied rice to fill their hunger and just forgot about old folks’ starvation. Even then, Filipinos are still hopeful to succeed in life and one easy way to achieve is to go abroad. Filipinos are earning  approximately 10 times of their income in the Philippines this is why a lot of our fellowmen are so desperate to go abroad thinking it as an enormous and rare opportunity to venture.

But what are the effects of going abroad then? People working away from home may correspond with negative consequences as many lives are already affected by this, such as misguided youth, broken families, adultery, cold relationship of the kids towards the parents and some other realistic effects. This may not be true to everyone but this is a reality check to awaken each one of us, not just for those who plan to go abroad but also to the Philippine government.

Life is beautiful especially when we see different spectacular places in this world and experience a very soothing and comfortable lifestyle. Each of us wishes to feel this way but it may not be as easy as what we think, it can also be difficult beyond what we can imagine.