Saturday, August 6, 2011

“Fear Is Reserved For Our Mothers” & Other Ways That The Female Pillars of Philippine Society Are Denigrated Through Exportation and Exploitation

The first picture taken of Papa and his three eldest daughters

During my stay here in the Philippines, I have twice enjoyed the company of a father who has long been estranged to me. This is a blessing that, (until last quarter when I applied for this study abroad program), I never thought would be mine to cherish. The times we have together are well-documented, and I scroll through hundreds of photos wistful in knowing that years of his absence cannot be likewise brought up on my computer screen, edited with his presence stamped throughout the times I was growing up, and relived without the fears of abandonment, of hunger, of being lost and of being incomplete hovering over the formative years of my life.

However, for the times that he wasn’t there, and for the moments that can never be rewound, my mother was, and for this she has earned my lifelong gratitude, love and respect.  She has been there for me, unfailing in both keeping a house and bringing home the bacon, and consistent in being the parent who, year after year, lays hard-earned medals upon my shoulders; she has been there for me, lighting my birthday candles once we could afford a cake to set them on, and managing to somehow light up my life through the times we couldn’t even afford a match.

Mama lighting my candles during my birthday last year

Likewise, I admire the many women in my life who have also had a hand in my upbringing, including my strict-but-supremely-loving Lola, my light-hearted and storyteller of an aunt, and my many kind and inspiring teachers.

Because of all of you, I have a high estimation of women and great expectations in our beauty, strength, and ability to change lives and to change the world.

It is also in thinking about all of you and being reminded of all that beauty, strength and ability that billboards like the one pictured below strikes me as extremely offensive.  

A gigantic billboard displayed outside the CFO (Commission on Filipinos Overseas) building

 Obscenely large, the billboard reads: “Fear Is Reserved For Our Mothers.”  It is hard to miss as one scans the area surrounding the CFO building, where we had spent an afternoon learning about issues pertinent to Filipinos living overseas.

Perhaps the statement is a clever allusion to a television show or something of the like; perhaps I’m over-thinking it, but really now, what is this even supposed to mean? Why is fear linked with mothers? Why, out of all the other figures in society (like cowardly fathers who abandon their families, and political leaders who dare not challenge the system for fear of losing their place in it), is fear associated with those who have been nothing but straight pillars in our society? Did anyone even really think this through? Confusion and indignation constitute my first and last impression regarding this deplorable ad.

Mindlessly-conceived advertisements like these that demean women and devalue the important role mothers and motherhood play in society do not merely discourage me from ever buying the company’s products, but also serves as a slap in the face, awakening my senses to the sharp, stinging system of oppression Filipinos, and especially Filipina women, are subjected to at home and abroad.

In the article “The Global Trade in Filipina Workers,” Grace Chang uncovers one of these systems of oppression in the form of the structural adjustment policies (SAPs) that international lending institutions based in the North have routinely prescribed to the governments of indebted countries of the South as pre-conditions for loans. In theory, SAPs are meant to promote efficiency and sustained economic growth in our “adjusting” country, but in reality, these policies only function as strategic wedges that leave the economies and peoples of a developing nation wide open to imperialist exploitation.

According to Chang, “SAPs strike women in these nations the hardest and render them most vulnerable to exploitation both at home and in the global labor market” (397). At home, it is the mothers and wives who must manage how to tease out a life out of a meager budget when wages are cut; it is the women who must take care of the sick and the elderly members of the family when healthcare vanishes; and it is the young girls who are first to be kept from school in order to help the family when education becomes too expensive.


A box for change on a jeepney, because every drop really does count!

When the boat is about to sink and people are bailing out left and right, it is the women who step up to counter the stresses of life, and keep the family afloat. With this said, it should come as no surprise that it is also the Filipina women (70% of overseas workers) who migrate abroad in search of work, and whose remittances are the ones literally keeping this country from sinking under its $46 billion debt (Chang, 399).

 The billboard in context

Dickies, you messed with the wrong girls.

I have a friend back in the States – an African American friend – who depresses me with his incessant remarks about how oppressed we as colored people are, and how the system oppresses not only people of color but especially women of color. I would look at him and sigh, would look at him and think: I’m sorry that you feel that way, but I feel fine.

At the time, I didn’t feel particularly oppressed;
At the time, I had never even conceived of myself as a person “of color;”
At the time, I accounted for his behavior by reminding myself that African-Americans endured a walk through hell and back, with a history mired by enslavement, dehumanization, and colorful ways of passing through this life like being lynched, skinned, or burned to death. That’s an intensely horrific existence (not even a life, but an existence), and if I learned of even half of the same experiences having alighted upon my own people, I would be likewise traumatized and embittered.

I am learning and am finding myself likewise traumatized and embittered, but I’m fighting against these feelings because they are the sort that, with time, will render me immobile. It’s important to fight it because I don’t want to be a perpetrator in my own time. I don’t want to pass this on and inflict people around me with this disease.

Photos taken at Boracay of Caucasian men and Filipina women

In another article “Migrant Filipina Domestic Workers and the International Division of Reproductive Labor,” Rhacel Salazar Parrenas writes about the three-tier transfer of reproductive labor (or “the labor needed to sustain the productive labor force” (561), describing a chain of events spurred not only by forces of global capitalism but also by gender inequities that ultimately result in an ever-deepening oppression of women.

Parrenas describes this three-tier transfer writing, “While class-privileged women purchase the low-wage services of migrant Filipina domestic workers, migrant Filipina domestic workers simultaneously purchase the even lower-wage services of poorer women left behind in the Philippines” (561). Parrenas takes a step back to describe how Western patriarchal societies have historically relegated reproductive work to women, and how these women have often been shown to “use their class privilege to buy themselves out of their gender subordination” (562).

Laundry that the housekeepers here at UP delivered to me. Cost: P80.00 ($2.00)

While there is an obvious gender inequity at work between men and women when the women are socially assigned such work as household chores, the care of elderly, adults, and youth, the socialization of children, and the maintenance of social ties in the family (561), there is also an interesting division of labor when it comes to the private sphere itself over where women preside. Instead of gender, race and status are used to establish a two-tier hierarchy among women.

In one camp are the “clean mistresses,” on the other the “dirty servants” (562). Phyllis Palmer makes this distinction saying, “the more physically strenuous labor of the servant enabled the mistress to attain the markers of ideal femininity – fragility and cleanliness.”

This should definitely call to mind Diaz’s article on “Pappy’s House” where he cites Barbara Christian as also arguing that it is because colored domestic worker shoulder the work of their white mistresses that the latter is enabled to do as they please and become as beautiful ornaments in society. Christian writes, “men did not fight duels or protect the honor of a woman who was busy cooking, scrubbing floors, or minding children, since the exclusive performance of this kind of work precluded the intrigue necessary to be a person as ornament” (324).

In this way, one can see that gender-induced inequality can give birth to race- and class-based inequities. This is why I need to fight it, and we need to fight it. A person who feels him/herself oppressed will either consciously or subconsciously pass on the oppression to another in order to alleviate or completely liberate themselves from the burdens associated with their lower status in a patriarchal society.

When I return, I can no longer tell my friend: I’m sorry that you feel that way, but I feel fine. Because I don’t feel fine. As a person of color, as a woman of color, seeing traces of racism and sexism at every turn of the head highly disturbs me. I read of what others before me have gone through and it is painful.

In “U.S. Racism and Intervention in the Third World, Past and Present,” Daniel Schirmer describes the murders of Joseph Ileto (a Filipino postal worker), and Sam Hose (a black farmhand) as only two of the many racial atrocities that continue to be committed at the heels of past crimes.

Joseph Ileto, Filipion-American postal worker and victim of white supremacist ideology 

 Over 10 years ago in California, Ileto was shot and killed by Buford Furrow, an official of the Aryan Nation, who claims that Ileto, as a “non-white” and federal employee, was a “target of opportunity” (170).

Mindsets that evoke the idea that it is the duty of the United States “as a white Anglo-Saxon nation to uplift and civilize” Filipinos who are seen as a “colored” and “inferior race” are detrimental not only to the Filipinos but also to the soldiers and citizens of this supposed Anglo-Saxon savior of a nation. White supremacists like Furrow go around cleansing the land of those they consider “inferior” (Jews and non-whites), and innocent people like Ileto fall to the ground.

In response to these acts of racial violence Schirmer writes, “It is hard to believe that violence used by the U.S. military against the peoples of color in Iraq, Sudan, Afghanistan, and the Caucasians of Serbia did not embolden U.S. white supremacists to inflict similar violence upon Asian-Americans, African-Americans, and other minorities here in the United States” (171).

This observation regarding the transfer of violence from one segment of the population to another is interesting. It reminds me of Parrenas’ three-tier transfer of reproductive labor, where a transfer of oppression from one class of women to another prevails.

Although Filipina migrants undergo various discriminations, injustices and exploitation in their workplaces abroad, neither the Philippine government nor organizations that should have the interests of women the world over (like NOW, the National Organization of Women) show any interest in protecting its overseas workers, its fellow women. According to Chang, the first would rather “sacrifice women’s lives to maintain good relations with its chief trade partners,” and the second may consist of privileged women of the First World who are actually “some of the primary consumers and beneficiaries in this trade” (405).

My mother working hard in the US in order to send as many dollars back to family in the Philippines

The system is incredible. My family has always been grateful that my mother ended up going to the US, instead of to Japan, where work might have tended more towards entertainment – whatever that means. However, even in the States, where she worked briefly as a caregiver, she was relegated to longer work hours and lower pay by management, and discriminated for her weak command of the English language and thick accent by her co-workers. I remember nights when she would come home exhausted and looking like she was on the verge of tears.

I would ask: “Ma, how was your day?” And, in trying to answer, she would burst into tears, un-consolable until the next day when she had to do it all over again. Over the years, she has reported less discrimination in the workplace, but every time something does happen, it makes my blood boil knowing that my mother was belittled, and I get the urge to drop by her work and speak on her behalf.

Why can’t the Philippine government and NOW feel the same way about protecting and defending women? Women who, in their attempt to provide a better life for their family back home, must endure racial, class, and citizenship inequalities in their “host countries.” However unfortunate the case, a similar process occurs on a domestic level with Filipina migrants knowingly or unknowingly helping to exploit the cheap labor of Filipina women left in the country by hiring them as domestic helpers to care for the aging parents and children they left behind.


At Starbucks, observing as a nanny plays with a toddler. There are many domestic workers here in the Philippines. I see them taking primary school-aged students to and from school, and feeding toddlers at the malls

Although Filipina migrant workers are paid abominably low wages and are denied public benefits or social services, and although these conditions may persist in their various occupations as domestic servants, nurses, sex workers, and entertainers, what they make abroad as domestic laborers is still significantly larger than what they would make in the Philippines as professionals (Chang, 399). The knowledge of their increased social status back home is part of what comforts Filipina migrants like Gloria Yogore in their vapid role as maids in other countries.

Yogore says, “In the Philippines, I have maids. When I came here, I kept on thinking that in the Philippines, I have maids and here I am one. I thought to myself that once I go back to the Philippines, I will not lift my finger and I will be the signora. [Laughs]. My hands will be rested and manicured and I will wake up a 12 o’clock noon” (575).

Yogore’s statement is a window whereby we can see how Filipino women who are too poor to be able to afford going abroad are consigned to even-lower-paying jobs as maids of those who serve as maids for higher-class women abroad.

When will the cycle stop? Parrenas has identified three tiers, but what if there were more on a micro level? Who will speak up for the women? Who will fight for them if, as Christian says, men do not fight duels or protect the honor of a woman busy cooking, scrubbing floors, and minding children?

Lola and my sister over 10 years ago when Mama and I left the Philippines to go to the US 

I was raised by a household full of women: of Mama, Lola, and Auntie who also took care of children the majority of whom were girls who have now grown into young women. I knew that without men in the house we were in a precarious state, but I didn’t know just how vulnerable we all were at the time. Now that I am older, and now that I am learning about the precarious and vulnerable state of Filipina women all over the world, I am no less fearful or insecure about my position in the world. That is the honest truth. It is tough living in a patriarchal society where most of the men are absent from their family’s lives, and women are left to fend for not only themselves but for even more vulnerable citizens like children and the elderly. It is a tough way to live when you must choose between either sinking or stepping on someone positioned lower than yourself in order to keep on breathing, in order to keep on living.

The beauty, strength, and ability of women to change lives and change the world is often curtailed as each is misused and exploited by dominant cultures and industrialized nations. For their beauty, women are sold as sex slaves; and for their strength, women are exported as cheap labor.

Who will fight for the beautiful and strong Filipina? Where are the Filipino men and why don’t they get up and fight for the mothers, daughters, and wives who are “busy cooking, scrubbing floors and minding children”?  

Maid to be a Mother

“Are you going to leave?”

“I don’t know.”

“Just so you know, if you walk out these doors, I won’t be here when you come back. Your little sister and I are moving out so that you will never find us.” She looked at me with hurt in her eyes as I secretly desired for her to just let me go. Let me go ma…please let me go.

She left, came back with a letter in her hand. She stood outside my doorway and looked at me. I looked down at my feet.

"Are you going to leave?” Again, she asked, voice broken.

“I don’t know.” Lie. And she knew it without having to look into my eyes. Beside my feet she threw all the letters I wrote to her since I could write. They were all tied up in a ribbon, all except one.

“You’ve changed so much; I don’t even know you anymore!” And with those last words, she shut the door behind her and sobbed softly in her bedroom.

I picked up the letter scattered apart from the others. The moment I began to unfold the tattered piece of paper, I realized this was the very first letter I ever wrote to her, back when I was only six years old. Written with my tiny hand, it read:

“Mom, I would never want to marry because then I would have to leave you. I would never want to leave you.”

…I wept.

I was the very thing I warned the parents against their children during my visit to the CFO last month—Americanized. At age 17 I wished to leave my home not because I wanted to seek a job to be able to help out my struggling, single mother nor aid the family I left in the Philippines who are living in squatter areas with hardly any food on the table. I wanted to leave for selfish reasons—to be with my boyfriend at the time. What crushed me the most after reading the letter for my mother was my realization that I have turned my back away from my own family, from my own responsibilities, from my duty as a member of the Sison family. You see, my mother did the same exact thing I did. She left her family—but in her case, she left for all the right reasons.

The stark difference between America and the Philippines is that America is individualistic while the Philippines is collective in nature. Ironically, our family-oriented nature is the very thing that forces us to separate from them. We would rather sacrifice ourselves for the greater good of the whole family than pursue our dreams. My mother was 27 years old when she decided to go to America and become the breadwinner for her mother, her daughters, her nieces and nephews.

The day came when she was due to depart and I, along with my grandmother, wanted to ask her the same question she asked me: are you going to leave, us, your daughter, your mother, your home? But we didn’t because we knew that in order for us to survive, she had to go. It was the only way to sustain the family. But even knowing this, my grandmother turned to me and decided that we were going to run after her to the airport, to see her one last time before she would leave for a long time.

Mama giving me a hug before departing to my study abroad in the Philippines

In the airport we desperately searched for her among hundreds of people. She saw us, and like a scene in a Spanish soap opera, she ran towards my grandmother and I and hugged the both of us with tears building up in her eyes. I clung to her with all my might. And though I was only nine at the time I could feel that, unlike when I was 17, she genuinely didn’t want to leave.

My mother is not alone in this predicament. The article, “The Global Trade in Filipina Workers,” written by Grace Chang reveals that the global economic downfall has forced Filipina women to migrate in search for work, ranging from slavery to being sex slaves. About 46% of the women’s workforce in the Philippines is international and only 36% stay in the homeland. According to Chang, 70% of the 46% workers work as servants to upper class homes abroad. In her interviews with some of the workers, these women are subject to horrible conditions. Here are only a few: A whopping 88% receive psychological abuse including threats, name calling, insults; 38% are physically abused; up to 11% were sexually harassed or were attempted of being harassed; 60% don’t receive regular meals; 52% had no bedrooms and were forced to sleep in kitchens, bathroom or storerooms; 31% reported being imprisoned in their workplace; 91% worked for 17 hours straight without receiving any breaks. Last but not least, 81% of these workers receive payments lower than the agreed amount, averaging only $105.00 a month. What’s disgusting is that the agencies that send these women abroad romanticize the conditions abroad—telling them the economic opportunities while failing to mention the horrid work conditions. The Philippine president herself declared these women as the “new heroes of the Philippine economy” in 1988. Well why not? These women are exploited like modern day slaves yet they boost up the economy through their incredibly low wages. Of course they’re considered heroes.

Luckily, my mother never went through any of these horrid statistics that other women had to go through and still go through until today. She was assigned to care for an elder woman named, Lois, a dear, old lady that she was very amused by. A devoted Christian and a very respectful woman, she treated my mom just as anyone should treat a fellow human being. But not everyone gets the same treatment as my mother. What about those that report of being physically and mentally abused? What are the authorities doing to those families that are responsible for those crimes? Do these women ever receive justice or do they become just another statistics?

In the case of Teresita Tristan, her passport was forcefully taken from her and instead of the promised $400.00 a month wage, she was paid only $108.00. The family that she worked for treated her like a dog, only allowing her to eat left overs on top of her not being allowed to eat from their plates. It outrages me how anyone could treat anyone like this, regardless of their social class or ethnicity. What’s sad is that even though they receive mal-treatments, they would rather still stay where they are at so that they can send money to their families in the Philippines. The abuse abroad doesn’t compare to the starvation they will have to face once they return home with nothing. These women are heroes, yes, but not for the reason that Aquino declares. These women are heroes because they save lives everyday by sending back most of their wages, no matter how bad they are treated or how low they are paid.

Organizations such as INTERCEDE, Kalayaan, and SEIU are working hard to fight for the rights of these women abroad while other organizations are fighting in the homeland to open up the government’s eyes on the impact that these women are making both abroad and back home. But we can’t rely fully on these organizations. We must do something as a nation to improve our economy so that leaving to another country becomes an options and not a necessity.

“Migrant Filipina Domestic Workers and the International Division of Reproductive Labor,” by Rhacel Parrenas explores the reasons and effects of the “three-tier” cycle of migrant Filipinas. The reason is obvious: Philippine wage is just not enough to support a family. In more than 130 countries, mainly in Italy and the United States, Filipinas find domestic work for low wage, often times with no benefits. The shocking thing that I learned is that many of these women that go abroad to become domestic workers have high education and or used to work as professionals. According to Parrenas’ research, these women working abroad get paid on average of $1,229. Compare that to the average salary of a worker in the Philippines, earning $179.00 a month. It’s no wonder why many tolerate the physical and psychological abuse. Even pride goes out the window for many of these workers abroad.

Carmen Ronquillo said: When coming here, I mentally surrendered myself and forced my pride away from me to prepare myself. When performing tasks way below her education and abilities, she said: So, sometimes I would just cry. I felt like I was slapped in the face. I resent the fact that we cannot use our skills especially because most of us Filipinos here are professionals. We should be able to do other kinds of work because if you only do housework, your brain deteriorates. Your knowledge deteriorates. Your whole being is that of a maid.

Beyond the abuse, beyond the low wages, beyond the pride deterioration, another thing haunts these women working abroad—leaving their own children to take care of the ones who are not their own. Parrenas further states that the women are “plagued by the pain of family separation.” I can personally relate to this since I’ve been there myself. When my mom left to the states to support us, I was emotionally unstable. Many nights I would cry for my mom to come back but she couldn’t hear me. I waited for her rare telephone calls eagerly and would begin to tell her how much I have missed her but then she’d have to hang up because the bill would get too high. The suffering goes both ways. It affects the ones who leave and those they leave behind. But most of us are given no other choice. We press on with loneliness and suffering for the sake of surviving, hoping that one day it will be better.

For me, it did become better. Just a few years later, my mom came back for me and took me with her to the states where I am now furthering my education in one of the top schools in the world. She doesn’t work as a caregiver any longer but she still manages to support my family here in the Philippines even with our financial situation. I can only hope the same will go for the women who dutifully sacrificed their happiness, their lives, just so they can support their love ones back home.

The sad reality is that this whole process will only keep on rising. As the first world and second world countries become more advanced, the women in the third world countries will be the ones to call on to do the dirty work. We can’t complain either because we are much better off cleaning toilets in other houses than be professionals in our own country. The dreams of Filipina women will forever be buried in the back of their minds as they aid to fulfill the dreams of the foreigners. The least we can do is uplift them, let them know that we appreciate their sacrifices and their hard work. It is times like these when I realize how lucky I am to have a mom like I do. To have her is to have the whole world. I will be forever grateful to her.

Next time she ask if I’m going to leave, I want to say, “Yes,” proudly. But this time, I’m leaving because it’s my turn to give her the life she has always dreamed of.

Mom, happy as can be :)

Because this week we got back from our excursion a day before our blogs were due, many of us including myself had to cram in all of the four readings from this week into yesterday, which to be fair was not really all that much. But because of this my head has been bombarded with so many ideas and I have been having trouble getting them into an orderly fashion in my mind. I will try my best to put down the things I have found crucial from this week as well as try to share things I have witnessed on our trip to the Visayas.

The main thing I wanted to touch on is the idea of corruption within the government. Obviously in this case I want to talk about the Philippine and American governments. Corruption is something that has been coming up repeatedly in our time here in the Philippines. I feel that most people in the U.S. and in the Philippines would not deny that there is corruption in the government. It seems like it is just a given and I find it sad that we can just accept this. I am not saying that I am particularly making a change but when given specific examples of things that the governments are doing that are oppressing people it really appals me. A perfect example is what Grace Chang was talking about in her article about migrant Filipino workers. She was talking about how the big banks set up plans for countries to get out of debt called structural adjustment policies (SAP). Sounds harmless enough and isn’t a plan to get a country out of debt a good thing? Not really when, as she says, they include, “cutting government expenditures on social programs, slashing wages, liberalizing imports, opening markets to foreign investment, expanding exports, devaluing local currency, and privatizing state enterprises”. This brings me to the point that all corruption seems to need is a good front. When you call all of these things a SAP it sounds like a good thing. I do not know for sure if the Philippines has gone through an SAP but by reading the symptoms it sounds very possible. When we had our talks with Anakbayan they stressed that fact that one of the Philippines’ problems is that they are export oriented and import dependent. These are two of the examples from Chang’s list: liberalizing imports and expanding exports. It is much easier for those on top to keep things corrupt and stay on top when the country cannot even get along on its own. One of the major problems with being export oriented is that you end up taking land that the people once used to farm on to feed themselves and turn it into a place to create things that the people of the country are not even going to get to enjoy for themselves. It is incredibly inefficient to any sort of independence and one of the may ways the people on top are able to stay there. I find it incredible that those who are in power can manage to ignore “their people” when I read about examples of the taking of land like the one in Chang’s article about the people in India. She gives an example of how the rice crops that the people were using to feed themselves were turned into shrimp farms for export to Japan and orange orchards for export to the U.S. to make orange juice. One lady even ran in front of the bulldozers begging them not to but of course it had no effect. I just literally do not understand how one person or group of people can get to the point of seemingly having no conscience. Do they just pass the blame to someone else or have they really gotten to the point of desensitisation?

When we were on our trip through the Visayas this past week we spent a good amount of time staying on the island of Mactan. While we were there we were fortunate enough to have a local lady, Kathy, show us around and give us the rundown on everything. One thing that was really interesting, especially as I am making the connections now, is that we passed a gigantic export processing plant on the island and Kathy informed us that around 500,000 people work there. This is a staggering number on its own but upon further investigation I found that the island’s population is only about 250,000! If that does not say something about the Philippines export orientation then I do not know what would. Import and export though are of course not the only means of corruption.

As Chang and Perenas have mentioned extensively in their articles this week, a huge factor in the government corruption is the mistreatment of women, especially of those going to work overseas. These women that are just trying to make a better life, often for their families more than themselves, are being completely taken advantage of. These women are already having to struggle to save up money in the Philippines to be able to afford the trip to the states or to Italy or wherever they may be going. I find it to be salt in the wound if you will that for many of these women, as Chang notes, have to go through a recruiter which cost $7,000 to $9,000. This goes towards paying the recruiter, paying a lawyer to set up their visa, and the rest to the hospital. The worst part is that all of these people work for the hospital so its basically a monopoly over these women. Since the minimum wage here in the Philippines, which is the most people are maybe making if they are lucky, is approximately $10 per day, you can imagine that they wont exactly have seven grand just laying around. Because of this the hospital sets up a wage deduction which then basically forces the nurses to stay with that company in order to pay off their debt. Sadly, in reading Parenas’ article we see that a college educated person makes more in the U.S. doing “unskilled” labor than utilizing their degree in their home country. These people are damned if they do, damned if they don’t.

These sort of situations make it seem, even to me at times, that most everyone in the U.S. is part of problems like these. But of course many people in America are treated unfairly as well in different ways. A perfect example of this general mistreatment is seen once again in Chang’s article. She mentions how people in the U.S. getting government assistance are not even given proper care. Instead of the government sending disabled and elderly folks to proper care facilities, they save $30,000 or so per year and give them a caregiver that has little to no experience with medical procedures. As you may expect many of these people are the Filipina/o workers from overseas. The government saves money by underpaying these nurses and simultaneously pockets the savings from neglecting the patients.

To continue looking at both sides of corruption, those guilty of it and those against it, we can look once again at the very beginning of the relationship between the Philippines and America. The entire situation of the U.S. in the Philippines was all for U.S. gain and based entirely on corrupt intentions. We have been studying this relationship a lot during our time in the Philippines and the things I hear still cease to amaze me in the worst way possible. In Schirmer’s article he has an account from someone from the Boston Evening Transcript who said that those who were close to McKinley, the President that led the war, said that he was “...fully convinced of the need for white supremacy...”. Of course it was a different time back then but I still cannot imagine how someone with this mindset could be the leader of our country and use those ideals to attack an innocent nation. It seemed his ideas were carried on by the soldiers in the Philippines as we see another quote from Schirmer’s article, this time from a soldier from, sadly, Washington state as he says, "our fighting blood was up and we all wanted to kill 'niggers.' This shooting human beings beats rabbit hunting all to pieces". There are obviously so many problems with this statement and its things like this that make it near impossible to sympathize with America on any aspect of the Philippine-American war and the ensuing colonization.

As I said though I would like to look also at the other side, at those Americans who were not down with the situation in the Philippines. I have been taking in so much of the negative side of this historical dilemma that I had not thought too much about the fact that naturally there were those Americans that were against the war. The outspoken group that formed against the situation was the anti-imperialist league. They were actually pretty large in number and fairly outspoken but unfortunately it seems that they did not have a huge impact on the situation. I would like to think that if I were around during these times that maybe I would have been a part of their league. I sometimes think about what kind of person I would have been had I been around back then. I would like to think that I would have sided with this league and been against imperialization. Its nice to know that at least some Americans recognized that they had not so long before endured their own revolution and were able to sympathize with the Filipino people.


In continuing to look at all sides of corruption there is still one more aspect to explore which is the idea that there were also corrupt Filipinos. I had not thought about the idea that if the Filipinos had created their own government right off the bat after the Spanish left that their government might too have had its own set of hierarchies. This would not have been the fault of the Filipino citizens because just as it is now, those that already had the money and power would have been the ones to take control and set things up in their favor. The prime example of that was Amilio Aguinaldo who was the Philippines’ first official president after claiming independence from Spain in 1898. He is portrayed by many as a hero but really it was Andres Bonafacio who initiated the revolution. Aguinaldo had what Bonafacio did not, money and social status. Unfortunately, as we see so many times in history, this seemed to pay off. He had Bonafacio executed on bogus charges and took his place as leader. Rafael notes in his article that Aguinaldo, “was more anxious to negotiate an arrangement with the Spaniards that would leave him and those of his class relatively secure in their positions of local power”. Its sad to see that even in his country’s time of need he could still be just as corrupt as any politician.

As we can see there always has been, is, and will likely always be corruption on all sides of every situation. There is still no question that in the case of the U.S. and the Philippines the U.S. is still at the root of many of the problems but it is that 1% at the top of the social pyramid in the Philippines that help perpetuate the problems. In taking in all of these negative truths the question I arise at is: is it worse to know all of these things and dwell on them or to not think about them and go on about your life? I just think the latter would be pretty difficult.












Because this week we got back from our excursion a day before our blogs were due, many of us including myself had to cram in all of the four readings from this week into yesterday, which to be fair was not really all that much. But because of this my head has been bombarded with so many ideas and I have been having trouble getting them into an orderly fashion in my mind. I will try my best to put down the things I have found crucial from this week as well as try to share things I have witnessed on our trip to the Visayas.
The main thing I wanted to touch on is the idea of corruption within the government. Obviously in this case I want to talk about the Philippine and American governments. Corruption is something that has been coming up repeatedly in our time here in the Philippines. I feel that most people in the U.S. and in the Philippines would not deny that there is corruption in the government. It seems like it is just a given and I find it sad that we can just accept this. I am not saying that I am particularly making a change but when given specific examples of things that the governments are doing that are oppressing people it really appals me. A perfect example is what Grace Chang was talking about in her article about migrant Filipino workers. She was talking about how the big banks set up plans for countries to get out of debt called structural adjustment policies (SAP). Sounds harmless enough and isn’t a plan to get a country out of debt a good thing? Not really when, as she says, they include, “cutting government expenditures on social programs, slashing wages,
liberalizing imports, opening markets to foreign investment, expanding exports, devaluing local currency, and privatizing state enterprises”. This brings me to the point that all corruption seems to need is a good front. When you call all of these things a SAP it sounds like a good thing. I do not know for sure if the Philippines has gone through an SAP but by reading the symptoms it sounds very possible. When we had our talks with Anakbayan they stressed that fact that one of the Philippines’ problems is that they are export oriented and import dependent. These are two of the examples from Chang’s list: liberalizing imports and expanding exports. It is much easier for those on top to keep things corrupt and stay on top when the country cannot even get along on its own. One of the major problems with being export oriented is that you end up taking land that the people once used to farm on to feed themselves and turn it into a place to create things that the people of the country are not even going to get to enjoy for themselves. It is incredibly inefficient to
any sort of independence and one of the may ways the people on top are able to stay there. I find it incredible that those who are in power can manage to ignore “their people” when I read about examples of the taking of land like the one in Chang’s article about the people in India. She gives an example of how the rice crops that the people were using to feed themselves were turned into shrimp farms for export to Japan and orange orchards for export to the U.S. to make orange juice. One lady even ran in front of the bulldozers begging them not to but of course it had no effect. I just literally do not understand how one person or group of people can get to the point of seemingly having no conscience. Do they just pass the blame to someone else or have they really gotten to the point of desensitisation?
When we were on our trip through the Visayas this past week we spent a good amount of time staying on the island of Mactan. While we were there we were fortunate enough to have a local lady, Kathy, show us around and give us the rundown on
everything. One thing that was really interesting, especially as I am making the connections now, is that we passed a gigantic export processing plant on the island and Kathy informed us that around 500,000 people work there. This is a staggering number on its own but upon further investigation I found that the island’s population is only about 250,000! If that does not say something about the Philippines export orientation then I do not know what would. Import and export though are of course not the only means of corruption.
As Chang and Perenas have mentioned extensively in their articles this week, a huge factor in the government corruption is the mistreatment of women, especially of those going to work overseas. These women that are just trying to make a better life, often for their families more than themselves, are being completely taken advantage of. These women are already having to struggle to save up money in the Philippines to be able to afford the trip to the states or to Italy or wherever they may be going. I find it to be salt in the wound if you will that for many of these women, as Chang notes, have to go through a recruiter which cost $7,000 to $9,000. This goes towards paying the recruiter, paying a lawyer to set up their visa, and the rest to the hospital. The worst part is that all of these people work for the hospital so its basically a monopoly over these women. Since the minimum wage here in the Philippines, which is the most people are maybe making if they are lucky, is approximately $10 per day, you can imagine that they wont exactly have seven grand just laying around. Because of this the hospital sets up a wage deduction which then basically forces the nurses to stay with that company in order to pay off their debt. Sadly, in reading Parenas’ article we see that a college educated person makes more in the U.S. doing “unskilled” labor than utilizing their degree in their home country. These people are damned if they do, damned if they don’t.

These sort of situations make it seem, even to me at times, that most everyone in the U.S. is part of problems like these. But of course many people in America are treated unfairly as well in different ways. A perfect example of this general mistreatment is seen once again in Chang’s article. She mentions how people in the U.S. getting government assistance are not even given proper care. Instead of the government sending disabled and elderly folks to proper care facilities, they save $30,000 or so per year and give them a caregiver that has little to no experience with medical procedures. As you may expect many of these people are the Filipina/o workers from overseas. The government saves money by underpaying these nurses and simultaneously pockets the savings from neglecting the patients.

To continue looking at both sides of corruption, those guilty of it and those against it, we can look once again at the very beginning of the relationship between the Philippines and America. The entire situation of the U.S. in the Philippines was all for U.S. gain and based entirely on corrupt intentions. We have been studying this relationship a lot during our time in the Philippines and the things I hear still cease to amaze me in the worst way possible. In Schirmer’s article he has an account from someone from the Boston Evening Transcript who said that those who were close to McKinley, the President that led the war, said that he was “...fully convinced of the need for white supremacy...”. Of course it was a different time back then but I still cannot imagine how someone with this mindset could be the leader of our country and use those ideals to attack an innocent nation. It seemed his ideas were carried on by the soldiers in the Philippines as we see another quote from Schirmer’s article, this time from a soldier from, sadly, Washington state as he says, "our fighting blood was up and we all wanted to kill 'niggers.' This shooting human beings beats rabbit hunting all to pieces". There are obviously so many problems with this statement and its things like this that make it near impossible to sympathize with America on any aspect of the Philippine-American war and the ensuing colonization.

As I said though I would like to look also at the other side, at those Americans who were not down with the situation in the Philippines. I have been taking in so much of the negative side of this historical dilemma that I had not thought too much about the fact that naturally there were those Americans that were against the war. The outspoken group that formed against the situation was the anti-imperialist league. They were actually pretty large in number and fairly outspoken but unfortunately it seems that they did not have a huge impact on the situation. I would like to think that if I were around during these times that maybe I would have been a part of their league. I sometimes think about what kind of person I would have been had I been around back then. I would like to think that I would have sided with this league and been against imperialization. Its nice to know that at least some Americans recognized that they had not so long before endured their own revolution and were able to sympathize with the Filipino people.


In continuing to look at all sides of corruption there is still one more aspect to explore which is the idea that there were also corrupt Filipinos. I had not thought about the idea that if the Filipinos had created their own government right off the bat after the Spanish left that their government might too have had its own set of hierarchies. This would not have been the fault of the Filipino citizens because just as it is now, those that already had the money and power would have been the ones to take control and set things up in their favor. The prime example of that was Amilio Aguinaldo who was the Philippines’ first official president after claiming independence from Spain in 1898. He is portrayed by many as a hero but really it was Andres Bonafacio who initiated the revolution. Aguinaldo had what Bonafacio did not, money and social status. Unfortunately, as we see so many times in history, this seemed to pay off. He had Bonafacio executed on bogus charges and took his place as leader. Rafael notes in his article that Aguinaldo, “was more anxious to negotiate an arrangement with the Spaniards that would leave him and those of his class relatively secure in their positions of local power”. Its sad to see that even in his country’s time of need he could still be just as corrupt as any politician.

As we can see there always has been, is, and will likely always be corruption on all sides of every situation. There is still no question that in the case of the U.S. and the Philippines the U.S. is still at the root of many of the problems but it is that 1% at the top of the social pyramid in the Philippines that help perpetuate the problems. In taking in all of these negative truths the question I arise at is: is it worse to know all of these things and dwell on them or to not think about them and go on about your life? I just think the latter would be pretty difficult.











Colonial Mentality

The colonial mentality that Filipinos have today was instilled by the Spaniard and American colonizers centuries ago. Both colonizers were light skinned and brought upon the belief that they were superior to the Filipinos. They discriminated against Filipino’s physical attributes and way of thinking by negatively labeling them as uncivilized and dark skinned savages. They used education systems and religious practices to transform Filipino culture and identity.  The damaging colonial mindset that our ancestors had to endure centuries ago continues to affect the Filipinos today. In the article Pappy’s House by Diaz he says, “For Spain, colonial regulation of money, gender, race, sexuality, language and identity took place within, among other institutions and practices. Spaniards produced the idea that they were white parents to indios figured as dark children, or pequenos ninos, or their Anglo-American cousins, the picaninnies, in need of proper guidance and upbringing.” Diaz also explains, “When the United States beat Spain and snatched Cuba and Puerto Rico over there, and Filipinas and the Marianas over here, American publications would run cartoons that consistently depicted their peoples--us!--as little black children, as picaninnies.” Having two light skinned colonizers reinforced the negative distinctions made on the Filipinos and have caused them to become mentally unstable. When I attended my first Filipino American Students Association (FASA) Conference, I learned that Filipinos wanted to be light skinned because they wanted to portray themselves as being a part of the upper class that stayed indoors. Filipinos did not want to be brown skinned because they did not want to be labeled as being a part of the lower class that were poor and worked outside in hard labor. After reading articles about Philippine colonization, the early beginnings of colonial mentality and separation of classes had taken place during the Spanish colonization when full blooded Spaniards and mestizos were portrayed as upper-class, white skinned, and well-educated. Whiteness was always associated with superiority and the colonizer. The images of Jesus Christ and saints having white skin, pointed noses, and blue eyes have also penetrated in the minds of the Filipinos. Filipinos developed a colonial mentality that is aligned to internalized oppression and feel the need to change physical attributes to fit the “white image”.
In the article The Colonial Mentality Scale for Filipino Americans: Scale Construction and Psychological Implications, David and Okazaki have found evidence through research that colonial mentality is passed on to later generations through socialization and continued oppression which negatively affects the mental health of modern day Filipino Americans. They said, “Colonial mentality is an individual-differences variable and a multifaceted construct that may be manifested in a variety of ways, including the following: denigration of the Filipino self, denigration of the Filipino culture and body, discriminating against less-Americanized Filipinos and tolerating historical and contemporary oppression of Filipinos and Filipino Americans.” During my stay here I have come to witness denigration of the Filipino body. Colonial mentality is the reason why many Filipinos have low self-esteem and have issues with their physical appearance. When I was flipping through a magazine on my flight to Boracay, I saw an ad for a nose lift. The model on the ad had white skin and a pointed nose. It was the first time I saw a surgical ad in an airline magazine. The U.S. airline magazines only have ads on hotels, restaurants, spas, malls, and products that are not related to surgery. I also noticed that that the company was owned by Korean. Getting eye-lid surgery and nose lifts are common and “normal” in Korea today. Koreans also have the same mentality that having big eyes and a pointed nose is beautiful.


                  (Goretex Noselift at Shimmian Manila Surgicenter)

          On my way back to Manila, I could not help but notice the airport advertisements for living spaces. Both models had white skin and pointed noses. In fact all the models in the advertisements had white skin. The fine print said, “Live like a star at Princeton”, “Live the high life”, and “Live in luxury”. These advertisements produce misconceptions that portray beautiful “white skinned” Filipinos are the only ones who can afford to live like a star and live in luxury. This is an example of class segregation and discrimination. Why can’t beautiful brown skinned Filipinos be plastered on advertisements that are associated with the high life?

                                         (Manila airport ad)


                                          (Manila airport ad)

I have seen advertisements of whitening products on the walls of MRT stations, inside shopping malls, and grocery stores. Through observation, I have seen skin whitening soap, tablets, cream, spray, and services that include injections and facial or body scrub. I was surprised when I saw whitening products for men when I was in front of a checkout stand at a grocery store in Cebu. The thought of Filipino men using whitening products never entered my mind. I did not think men would be conscious about their skin color and take the time to apply whitening products on a daily basis.




                          (Men whitening face wash by Vaseline)



When I was at The Terraces shopping mall in Cebu I was curious to see the different whitening products in the beauty store called Watsons. I was shocked to see rows of whitening products from companies I was familiar with in the United States. There was Neutrogena, Olay, Nivea, Garnier, Loreal etc. I also could not believe I saw whitening products from Korea.  I asked myself, “Why do Koreans sell and use whitening products when they are already light skinned?” After thinking about it, Koreans have yellow skin tones not “white”. I had the urge to ask a lady who was working there, “Why do Filipinos wear whitening products?” She looked at me as if I already knew the answer. I honestly did not know the answer. She replied, “Having white skin is beautiful.” Then I asked, “Why is having white skin beautiful?” She said, “Filipino men like girls with white skin.” I could not believe what I had heard. She is one of the many who has the colonial mentality that white is superior. If I had brown skin I would be thankful and appreciative. In my opinion, having brown skin is beautiful and Filipinos should embrace their physical attributes. There are many side effects of using whitening products. Some creams include mercury that could lead to liver damage and kidney failure. Using whitening creams that have a lot of hydroquinone causes skin irritation, burning sensation, and skin sensitivity to the sun. 







I also remember having a conversation with the UW study abroad program director’s family members about how companies only hire women of ages 18-25 with light skin and long hair. One of the family members explained that she had walked into the bank and every bank teller looked the same. They each had fair skin and long straight hair. The companies portray this “white” image everywhere. In every shopping I have gone to, the women wear whitening products. It is clearly visible when their neck is brown and their face is white. After being told that there is a certain criteria that needs to be met in order to be hired, I assumed that the people working at the malls needed to purchase whitening products to obtain a job and to socially portray the so called “beautiful white image”.(clothing store in SM north edsa)





          Before coming to the Philippines, my Filipino American auntie made a request to buy her 10 Kokuryu whitening compact powder cases at SM shopping mall. When I asked her why she wears whitening products she confidently said, “White is my skin color.” This clearly was not true because I was able to see that her neck was brown and her face was white. Filipinos like my auntie are in denial and do not realize they are being affected by colonial mentality.
It does not help when media plays a large role in selling the “white skin is beautiful” image to everyone.  The models and movie stars are all light skinned and have pointed noses. They are on Filipino television networks, movies, magazines, large billboards on shopping malls and buildings. I have not seen one famous person on Filipino television or a billboard that was not light skinned.


                                      (clothing store in SM north edsa)





                                             (SM grocery store)

Filipinos need to re-educate themselves about their roots, upbringing, values and beliefs to break away from colonial mentality. Filipinos are subconsciously unaware of internal oppression and do not understand what media is portraying. The media is infecting the minds of the Filipinos and making them believe “White = Beautiful”. The large corporations and advertisement companies make up 1% of the ruling class. In the article, Hip-Hop and Critical Revolutionary Pedagogy Gramsci believed the considerable task of instilling conviction among the proletariat that they are the creators of history would not be possible without a strong understanding of what emerged from a collective past. If Filipinos knew and truly understood the damaging influences behind the Spaniard and American colonization, they would embrace the beauty of having brown skin all throughout the media. Gramsci also believes intellectuals who are committed to the mass, are essential figures in countering a naturalized view of class-based society as they can assist organizationally, politically, and culturally in the tasks of transforming the world. Members of the Filipino community such as Blue Scholars, Anakbayan, and other Filipino student organizations verbally inform Filipinos about their history, express the issues of Philippine society and help strengthen them to take part in transforming society one step at a time. Developing critical consciousness and the movement of collective actions of people will help Filipinos break free from colonial mentality and make changes to better the community.

DISCUSSION QUESTION:
Should whitening products be banned in the Philippines to overcome colonial mentality??