I have a simple question to ask in light of all the hollowheaded feelings of being “insulted” by the Philippines being labelled “a nation of servants”:
What is wrong with being a “servant” anyway?
Why feel “insulted” when called a “servant” when one is in fact earning an honest living working as a servant.
If placed in the proper context, being a worker employed in the domestic services industry is a profession just like any other.
Filipinos however do not see things this way.
The trouble with Filipinos (and the irony that utterly escapes our limited sensibilities in light of all this Tsip Chao brouhaha) is that we generally treat the domestic help we ourselves employ in our homeland in an undignified and appalling way — far worse than they are treated overseas:
:D Their roles in the household are undefined (no employment contract stipulating working hours, scope of work, and benefit entitlements) and as such;
:D They are on-call 24 hrs a day — nothing stops their employers from sending them out in the middle of the night to buy a single cigarette stick.
:D We allow our own kids liberty to boss them around and verbally abuse them.
:D They are paid below minimum wage; and,
:D Their employers do not make contributions to the Social Security System on their behalf.
If anything was achieved by those 7,000 Filipinos marching in Hong Kong highlighting the “insult” that they feel hasn’t been rectified, it was that they facilitated the emergence of even more disturbing realities about The Filipino.
Filipinos are culturally predisposed to regard people employed in our local domestic services industry as socially inferior. As such, though laws may be in place (I’m not a lawyer so I may be mistaken here) that criminalise the above practices cited above, they persist nonetheless and are still seen as socially acceptable (at worst) or something that is not stigmatised among employers of domestic help (at best). The plight of servants in the Philippines — something not discussed in polite society — is but a mere speck in the vast banality of the bigger framework of injustice ingrained at the very fabric of Philippine society.
Yes, this low social standing of servants is ingrained from childhood (Point 3 above) even in the minds of Filipino professionals who go off to Hong Kong and other countries to work as, well, servants. Though well aware that they are indeed working as such, they don’t want to be reminded of that quaint reality.
It gets even funnier, folks.
The fact is, many of our slighted compatriots working in Hong Kong as servants probably still employ servants in the Philippines themselves.
Filipinos who prefer to be known by their former professions — teachers, engineers, and office workers — who now work as servants in Hong Kong themselves once employed or continue to employ servants back in their homeland — and most likely treated them or continue to treat them in the same appalling way that most Filipinos treat their servants.
Indeed, this latest of “issues” that grips the tiny mind of the Filipino is just another in a long list of “issues” that have had an unexpected effect of highlighting that renowned utter lack of inclination in the Filipino to reflect.
So why do we feel insulted by being called a “nation of servants”?
Perhaps it is because we ourselves, look down upon people who earn an honest living as servants.
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Sir
Yes the photo depicts maids, but isnt your photo a bit sexy to the point that its inappropriate. It deviates the readers attention from the article to the picture. Web reader’s prefer to scan articles,
and the word “servant” together with the picture of a sexy maid doesnt really go well with your statement.
Benigno,
I also believe that being a DH is something worthy of being regarded with dignity.
I am also agreeable to the fact that this Chip Tsao issue must not be dwelt in with such an overrated ire once and for all, both in the HK streets and in virtual space (there are many more important issues in RP than this).
Yet I think it lingered not because of the Filipino connotation of the word servant but because of the meaning the term implies to the world; not the literal meaning, but the symbolic meaning. Filipinos are frightened with how the world would look at it, and once you have a country which has just been undergoing a period of nationalistic surge, sensitivity to global identity is always inevitably a continual issue.
Another thing that amazes me is when an individual Filipino DH is called a foreign counterpart of muchacha, atsay, or alila by a foreigner, it raises no fuss as long as it privately stays in the employer`s household. But if the latter calls a whole group of Filipinos servants and gets heard all over even on a cheap tabloid, the 7,107 islands would be shaken up and cries of persona non grata etc. etc. are raised.
Which convinces me that this issue is here due to the fact that the Filipino is concerned more of national identity than any others. For them it is not the case of being literally regarded as servants but rather they are disgusted by the collective derogatory racial symbolism it signifies. Substitute other derogatory words to servants, and you will get the same response.
This issue is not new to us. It has been recurring since the 1990s, or even beyond in many guises.
If there will be a difference here then it is supersensitivy in an age when the Philippines is enjoying a nationalistic orgasm. And she is not yet in the climax.
That is why HK Mag called it Politically Incorrect, because they refer to us as a people so much concerned with nothing but political correctness.
Certainly going around stomping our feet and raising our fists about some petty perceived insult will not make it clearer in our collective mind what our “identity” as a people is, much less ingrain a sustainable notion of something about being Filipino to be “proud” of.
In almost a decade of Web trolling, I have yet to see a convincing response to my challenge:
Cite specific examples of achievements we can attribute to Filipinos collectively that we can be “proud” of.
Where there is no achievement, there can be no pride.
Benign0,
is achievining something we can be proud a condition sine qua non before we can feel the outrage for an insult thrown at us?
put it in another context: if we have something to be collectively proud of, the insult thrown at us is an insult, otherwise, it is not. what kind of sylogism is that?
An insult is an insult whether you dish it out to a bum on the street or to a well-groomed CEO in Australia.
In Tsip cheap shot, we cannot put our claim over Spratleys because as “a nation of servants” we cannot flex our muscles against our masters”. The proriety of our legal claim over the islands is separate from the fact that we are a “nation of servants”, for even as servants, we have adequate right to prove what really belong to us and put our claim thereat and that right is never diminished by our status as “servants”.
You should just have placed Pope Benedict XVI’s photo. He is supposed to be the gigaservant of the cosmos. He is Servus servorum Dei.
Servant of the servants of God.
But seriously, Catholics and Evangelicals in the Philippines sing church ditty “Make me a servant” but do they know what it means to be one?
The Blessed Virgin Mary is made into an icon of servitude. Was she? I don’t think so.
Lent is when we should overturn our Catholic and Christian stereotypes.
Maybe Pinoys should live for a year at least in Australia!
Now Benigno, we are larrikins and in that sense no longer Filipino. Beneath our radiant Southern Cross, we learned that service personnel are indeed professionals and deserve the fair go.
Thus we skewer class distinctions and pretensions. What the employer eats, the employee eats too. Thus not few people found it disconcerting that once I hosted a dinner in a fancy Makati resto and my driver and I SAT in the same table with me and the honoured guests.
That’s my policy to my staff domestic or otherwise. If we are doing business, I expect them to sit on the same table with me as and eat the same food.
But there are more cultural barriers in our country that larrikinism may not be able to surpass.
Insightful piece, but the photo distracts. :)
Sige na nga, papalitan ko na… :)
I liked the previous picture better.
As if to prove how far worse housemaids are treated in the Philippines by the more affluent Filipinos themselves than in Hongkong by their employers, benigno cites the following points as bordering on ‘criminal practices’ per se and yet are still socially acceptable:
Point 1, no employment contract.
Point 2, on call 24-hours a day.
Point 3, verbally abused by kids.
Point 4, paid below minimum wage.
Point 5, employers don’t pay SSS contribution.
Well, then, why are we insulted to be called a nation of servants?
It might be socially acceptable in the Philippines.
However, the Philippines is not the only country/state on the planet.
As far as countries with more developed economies are concerned – all those points pointed will land an employer in jail.
***
And speaking of maids, it’s just another profession .
Sheesh… In my neck of the woods, there are even maids who will clean your house topless or in bikinis for an hourly rate.
another viewpoint is written in this Pinoy OFW’s website
see link below
http://streetstrategist.blogspot.com/
this is a free country so contradicting ideas should be tolerated.
Ka Jojo:
Very well said!
Thank you Tsing Tsao! It took a Hong-Kongese to inspect our inner selves on how we treat our servants.
But it’s unfortunate our inward looking in cannot be found in our pekeng-peryodiko it can only be found in blogospheres because the owners of pekeng-peryodiko and pekeng-peryodistas practice treat their servants like slaves …
MABUHAY SI TSING TSAO!!!!! NGAYON PINAG-USAPAN NA NATIN ANG ATING MGA SERVANTS ……
… we also came into introspection of our colleges and universities when a Filipina in Desperate Housewives made derogatory comments on our schools.
Why is it that it takes a foreigner for us to introspect? But never listen to Pilifinos?
WE NEED TO OURSOURCE OUR GOVERNMENT …
There is nothing wrong with being a servant. It is a decent way of
making a living. However, it has prick the nation’s “amor propio”.
We look at Ourselves and discover the truth where our Leaders and
Politicians have taken us. They are the modern day Slave Traders. We
are the modern day Slaves. The destination were not in some American
Southern States Plantations. The destinations are some homes of
Wealthy Foreigners. Working at starvation pay, with no labor laws
or labor rules for protection.
Our Leaders should be where our outrages are directed, not to Chip Tsao.
There is something wrong with calling us “nation of servants” because only about 7,000 Pinays worked as maids in Hongkong. There are more than these numbers who worked as nurses, engineers, pt’s construction workers, waiters, it professionals and and small enterpreneurs in Saudi, Oman, Dubai, Guam, France, England, U.S. and various carribean cruise ships.
There are about 90 million Pinoys and 7,000 or so maids do not make us a “nation of servants”. Assuming we are a “nation of servants”, the article of Tsip Tsao derogates our nation because as “servants” we should refrain from exercising our territorial rights (claim the Spratleys) because we cannot flex our muscles against our “masters”.
That we work as maids are totally independent of our right to put a claim of what we believe rightfully belong to us. Tsip Tsao should ask his government to bring the matter to the proper forum to test the validity of our claim and not to insult us for exercising our territorial rights because as “servants” we do not have such right. (we cannot flex our muscles).
The inability of the government to provide jobs for our citizens does not provide an excuse for anyone to insult us. Please read carefully Tsao’s article and savor the insult as dished out. If you do not feel the same way as others, please do not accuse those who did as inferior and dumb because you were not the only one awake when the good lord distributes the talents in this wide world.
jcc:
“The inability of the government to provide jobs for our citizens does not provide an excuse for anyone to insult us. Please read carefully Tsao’s article and savor the insult as dished out. If you do not feel the same way as others, please do not accuse those who did as inferior and dumb because you were not the only one awake when the good lord distributes the talents in this wide world.”
can also be written as:
“The inability of the government to provide jobs for our citizens does provide an excuse for anyone to insult us. Please read carefully Tsao’s article and savor the satire as dished out. If you do not understand the meaning of the word satire I’ll be glad to give you a dictionary”
satire is an insult made in literary form to obtuse the sting. it is still an insult. but tsip cheap shot is not a satire, it was plain and simple insult. read the article to find out. the guy had already apologized because he believed that he had crossed the line of acceptable conduct of civility and here you are telling us that it was not meant to insult us. and that makes you very funny not me..
and please don’t give me your dictionary. i have wikipedia and i have encarta 2009.
here is wikipedia entry:
Satire is often strictly defined as a literary genre or form; although, in practice, it is also found in the graphic and performing arts. In satire, human or individual vices, follies, abuses, or shortcomings are held up to censure by means of ridicule, derision, burlesque, irony, or other methods, ideally with the intent to bring about improvement.[1] Although satire is usually meant to be funny, the purpose of satire is not primarily humour in itself so much as an attack on something of which the author strongly disapproves, using the weapon of wit.
A very common, almost defining feature of satire is its strong vein of irony or sarcasm, but parody, burlesque, exaggeration, juxtaposition, comparison, analogy, and double entendre are all frequently used in satirical speech and writing. The essential point, however, is that “in satire, irony is militant”.[2] This “militant irony” (or sarcasm) often professes to approve the very things the satirist actually wishes to attack.
I didn’t find the article insulting, I actually found the article amusing.
And I found the HK Pinoys reaction against Tsao as ridiculous, reminiscent of people with low self esteem who constantly carry a chip on their shoulders.
People take offense at an author for mention of an imagined hurt from “being a nation of servants – and yet no one raised hell against the corrupt when the Philippines was singled out as the most corrupt country in Asia?
Hay naku, hanggang HK baon ang kaGUNGGONGan.
There are 130,000 Pinay servants in HKG… alone…. so does that make the Phils now a country of servants? How many is your threshold quantity?
But only 7,000 protested. exaggerated by yan by Phil. media correspondents.
Where is the 123000? they dont feel insulted? Bec it is true?
the guy has already apologized and yet you continue to say that he did nothing wrong.. as the cliche goes: “you are more popish than the pope”. you just show your colonial mentality who toy with the idea that every other guy who is not Filipino must be better than the Filipino.
He didnt apologize. His apology was even a more insulting statement something like Pinoy cannot understand english. it was not admission of guilt
urbano, spokesman of Tsao who interprets the apology as not an apology but another insult. :)
you could be reading Pacifico, who according to Ding was masquerading as Tsao.
Im not a spokesman of Tsao, I am a reader of english. And I see an apology which was not. He remained a satirist. And you do you even know the name of Tsao’s column?
benigno,
if you abuse your maids while you were in RP, please do not make that as the representation of people who hire maids in their household in RP. please take note also that Hongkong maids are college graduates. we cannot afford college graduate maids in RP. so if there is variance in pay, please consider that factor and also the factor that Hongkong is much way richer than RP.
Can you imagine what HK residents think – that college RP graduates are just good for employment as domestic househelp.
That improves the perception of the Philippines? Now it’s not just a nation of servants but a nation whose college graduates are best employed as servants.
Oh boy…
Exactly Bong V. thats what the Hong Kong masters think. We are so cheap, even our college grads are cheap servants in Hong Kong. Do you really think they dont look down at Pinoy on a day to day basis as a nation of poor servants? Even if chip tsao didnt say it, the majority of HKG people think that way about pinoy. Nurses are maids, teachers as maids in HKG
urbano,
speaks only for yourself. if you think and feel cheap don’t begrudge others who feel the contrary.
JJC,
I speak for myself, and I dont pretend to speak for the Filipinos. JCC, do the same. Speak for yourself and your opinion is yours only, and therefore, I tell you, the Filipinos are not offend by the phrase Nation of Servants because the Filipinos know satire.
JCC, you dont understand satire, and dont pretend to claim that Filipinos think like you on this issue.
Speak for yourself. Yourself.
Urbano:
Exactly, Chip Tsao just vocalized what has been in HK residents’ minds for some time now.
If anything at all, we ought to be insulted NOT by Chip Tsao but by our own acts – lots of it.
How did we as a nation get to this point? What choices did we make, as a nation, that led to these consequences? Or does the phrase personal responsibility been stricken out from the collective Filipino psyche?
people,
Have anyone of you addressed the issue that Tsip used the phrase “nation of servants” in relation to the claim of the government over the islands of Spratleys? He in effect said that were are bereft of any legal rights to claim for the islands because as “servants” we cannot fle our muscles against our masters. Sof even if legally we can claim title over the island, such should be an imprudent claim because as servants we cannot flex our muscles against our masters.
jcc:
Do not get stuck in the three phrases and read the entire column. It is obviously a satire.
Doesn’t bother me at all. If it bothers you, that’s your concern, not mine.
And yes, the Philippines is “a nation of servants” – people who serve. Our main revenue source is remittances from services rendered by our blue collar and white collar labor force.
As to the Spratley’s issue – consider it as “now you know how the bangsa moro feel after being deprived of their historical territory by the Colonial master-supported indio occupation forces”. One good turn deserves another.
bong,
get your facts straight…. our main revenue are still the taxes collected by the BIR from the people doing business in the country and real property taxes.
Jcc:
Get your facts straight – and interpret it correctly.
As to revenue sources, based on NSCB data, accessed April 8, 2009, as of the 4th quarter of 2008, the services sector accounted for 53% of GDP. Adding Net factor income from the rest of the world (Remittances) brings up the services sector to 57% of GNP.
Given that the services sector now accounts for 57% of GNP, should we now call the Philippines a nation of manufacturers?
Or shall we stick to a nation of people who render services? Hmmmm… whaddya call someone who serves????? oh… manufacturer. yeah, right. LMAO.
you love to parse tsao’s article. :)
so your services sector at 53 per cent means “services” as katulong?..
so you classify “servants” in Tsao’s context as including call center agents, sales personnel, taxi drivers, jeepney drivers, bus drivers, hotel staff, carribean cruise staff, stewardees, textile workers, tourist guides?
i thought for a moment that the “servants” in Tsao’s piece are “domestic help” employed in one’s household.
we may not be a country of manufacturers, but that does not make us a country of servants in Tsao’s context.
but as i said, even domestic servants can claim a piece of territory that could lawfully belong to them, their being “katulong” notwithstanding.
JCC:
What do you wanna call call center agents, sales personnel, taxi drivers, jeepney drivers, bus drivers, hotel staff, carribean cruise staff, stewardees, textile workers, tourist guides – CEO?
Wake up and smell the coffee.
read “nation of servants” in Tsao’s context who said that as such we cannot flex our muscles against our masters whom we depended so much for our bread and butter. simple english, it does not include call center agents, taxi and bus drivers, hotel workers, etc.. in RP because they receive their wages not from their masters in HK.
Here is Tsao’s article as well as his apology. After reading them, please don’t tell me you know more English than I do.
http://www.philstar.com/Article.aspx?articleId=454117&publicationSubCategoryId=202
http://www.gmanews.tv/story/155242/Chip-Tsao-says
contextual insult: take note: “you cannot flex your msucles against your master whom you depended so much for your bread and butter”.
simple english: “servants working in hongkong who depended so much for their bread and butter from their HK employers”.
bus and taxi drivers, call center agents, hotel staff, and other workers doing service related jobs who are employed in the country and other places are not part of the “servants” in Tsao’s context.
now you are parsing Tsao to mean that “we are a nation of servants” because 53% of our kakabayans were doing service-related employment.
and now you tell me that you know your english more than i do, and you know satire when you read one. congrats. :)
Simple lang yan, if you all don’t want to be known as coming from a “nation of servants” – don’t apply for DH jobs overseas!!!!!!!!
Mag japayuki na lang, be known as “nation of whores”
Mag nurse na lang, be known as “nation of punas pwets”
Mag lawyer na lang, maging utusan ng mga magnanakaw sa gobyerno, be proud to be known as a “nation of thieves”
And then keep on rallying at how you all were “slurred”. ROTFLMAO!!!!!!
at least it’s not the “nation of the great satan” or “the harlot of babylon”.
*****
going back to the article, if you don’t get that it’s a satire and keep on harping it’s an insult, my personal take is you need a self-esteem check up.. ROTFLMAO
jcc:
yeah.. people doing business.. as .. KATULONG AGENCY.. LMAO.
Conditional threat can be a crime in legal context. Cheap tsao generalization of pinoy as ” nation of servants” can be interpreted to be discriminative or to defame a certain group/class of people. It can also be interpreted as a human right violation affecting minority , based on their status in life.
Others may also interpret it as a wake up call. A reminder to our policymakers that this country must create jobs and advertised our people as highly educated.
Or the interpretation maybe that pinoys don’t have the bulls to flex their muscles. True, the personalities in malacanang cannot flex their muscles. Of course, they can’t. They borrowed money from China. There’s real money “utang plus utang na loob”. Can you flex your muscles?
However you guys interpret it, it’s your call. pinoys always get insulted and the sad part is, the insults can be true..
I don’t know how such a large number of people can have low self-esteem that they would react to a satirical piece with such hysteria.
Guys, there are nations who have been called worse, and their citizens shrug it off, because their citizens know such statement is not true.
Baka naman pumapalag kayo dahil totoo at di natin matanggap na sa pangkasalukuyan, tayo ay lupain ng mga alila.
Kung totoong alila kayo so what? Denial pa ren? Di nyo ba nakikita – alila kayo ng mga politiko at ng mga kompanyang pag-aari ng mga politiko at ng mga cronies nila. And instead of shooting the messenger, we ought to listen to the message and reflect, and find a solution on how the perception can be changed.
What’s a rally going to do? Bring attention to the fact there are many more DH in HK willing to join rallies?
At least sa HK, nation of servants ang pagkakilala sa Pilipinas. Can you imagine what the Japanese think given the japayuki phenomenon – A NATION OF WHORES.
Ok, let’s talk nurses. Ano bang tawag ng mga homeland flipz dun – punas pwet. Naka Lexus/Acura/BMW/Benz/Infiniti/Porsche ka – pero punas pwet ka pa rin – utusan ng doctor, alila ng hospital.
Ok, let’s talk US Navy. utusan ka pa rin.
Ok, how about call center operators. alila ka ng supervisor at managers mo. and yung mga bossing mo, utusan ng mga bosing nila.
Engineers? utusan ka pa rin ng mga contractors sa KSA – you don’t do the job – they’ll ship you out.
We are in the service economy – naturally we render services – blue collar and white collar. That makes us as a people who render services as “servants” – just like everyone else – Mexicans, Chinese, Vietnamese, French, Polish, Czech, Russian, etc.
The point is “what’s the big deal, yes, we are a nation of servants, but so is everyone else”. Get over it, so much ado over nothing.
those who read the article and find insult in it are people with low-self esteem, those who agreed with the article are superior human beings. again, my highest regard for you mr. superman. :)
i’m a bit confused by the title of your post, considering you ur intellectual ouevre. i thought u were criticizing filipinos for having zero entrep skills? no capital? so now its OK to be labor?
ok. u’ve changed ur mind. i’m glad u’ve abandoned ur whole “what do filipinos have to make us proud/that is worthwhile” meme. its clear that filipinos working an honest life is a worthwhile life.
Re: philippine HH help.
its possible, even likely, that while the salary is low, the total monetary transfer to HHH is high. the meals, for example, are free. Board and lodging, utilities, all free . also, there is an implicit contract for social support as well — if a HHH get sick, the employer should care for the employed person. there is also educational support, etc… also, the work hours tend to be quite flexible.
now, you can say that the informal nature of this leads to abuse. but you didnt say that :)
there is always some recompense — if HHH feels its not high enough, then they can leave. OR if there is real abuse, then there is the law.
this is a problem for foreign nationals in other countries. a restricted work environment, no market recourses (i.e. a maid can’t look for other employers, they must first go back home, a HUGE cost to them), no legal remedies…
GabbyD, explain first how you arrived at the conclusion that my highlighting a lack of entrepeneurial skills is in conflict with my statement of respect for an honest day’s wages earned from doing domestic household tasks.
huh? correct me if i am wrong, but u cannot criticize the lack of entrep skills one moment, and praise it later, and believe BOTH at the same time.
the opposite of entrep is “lack of entrep”, i.e. salaried work. isn’t it?
more than that, you expressd disdain over the OK NA YAN culture, the prime example u used being the OFW. and now its OK to be an OFW, coz its its honest work?
well, i agree with you that its ok coz its honest work. so i’m glad u’ve changed ur mind (even as we all understand that we must grow, and try to do better each and every time, do better than our forefathers did, etc…).
GabbyD, where exactly did I “praise” lack of entrepeneurial skills?
Encouraging people to respect an honest day’s work in the service of someone else’s household is different from encouraging an entire society to rely on OFW-ism, dude.
uhuh… so its NOT wrong to be called a servant, a NATION of servants…
… so a nation/people shouldn’t be insulted by it…
…UNTIL…
…you want to point out that its a symptom of lack of entrep, a symptom of OK NA YAN, etc…
… at which point, we should be ashamed as a people…
OK. understood. :)
seriously:
1) practically all things in the world have good and bad attributes.
2) we should be embarrassed about/regret something when it has a ‘bad’ quality that, even considering its good attributes, is still regrettable.
3) so when u say OFWs are a “OK NA YAN” symptom to be regretted (among other criticisms u laid out), it is ASSUMED that u included in ur moral calculus the good stuff as well.
4) so NOW when u say we shouldn’t be ashamed coz its honest employment for people, that ought to also include the bad stuff too…
OTHERWISE, u end up with a schizo view point, and you don’t have a definite opinion (hence my confusion).
ano ba talaga? ON NET, should we be embarrassed by it? or not?
Uy Benigz,
Pinalitan mo na pala ang pic. Naging robot naman…. hehehe, sex sells. :)
Palagat ko Pat and DJB liked the first one. :)
Of course we should be insulted. Chimays should be treated as they should in the social rung. God created them to clean our toilet bowl. They were not blessed with the faculties to do anything else. This is the simple order of things.
The same can be said for Filipinos. It is the natural division of labor in the world.
What’s wrong with being a servant then? Well, nothing really. Filipinos should just accept their fate. And so should you Benign0. How do you like wiping the asses of your Australian bosses?
whats so wrong being called a servant?
Try this:
BenignO is presently a servant of DJB. Before that, he was in the employ of JCC. For two months he was a servant of Ding Gajelonia on loan from MLQ3 but this servant is a truly loyal hardworking diligent honorable servant who can be woke up at 1:30 am to buy a stick of Hope and a stick of marijuana.
That’s precisely why lots of Filipinos reacted – because they can see themselves being treated how they treat their domestic helpers. DELIRIOUS and HILARIOUS!!!!!!
Eto – typical story:
According to reports, Baoanan, a 39-year old nursing graduate from the Philippines, arrived in the United States in January 2006 with a diplomatic “red” passport and visa, as a “personal employee” of Ambassador Baja. She says she paid P250,000 to Baja’s wife, Norma Baja in agreement for exchange of transportation to the U.S, a visa, work authorization and help in finding a nursing job. Instead, she says she was forced to work in the five-story Philippine consular residence 16 hours a day, seven days a week and only received $200 for three months of work. She says she also received abuse from Baja’s grandson who was allowed to hit her.
Di pwede yan sa America – nasampahan agad ng kaso. Kung sa pilipinas, ala na, areglo na.
If filipinos treat their house help that way, they have reason to fear if the world treated filipinos in the manner that most filipinos treat the help. PAYBACK’S A B*TCH – ROTFLMAO!
Ricelander,
That’s a particularly low blow (for both Benign0 and me!) but would you say that the average Filipino Domestic Helper in Hong Kong is better treated, less well treated or treated about the same as those in the Philippines employed by Filipinos?
In other words, do you think that Filipinos in general treat other Filipinos who happen to be THEIR servants better or worse than Chip Tsao treats Louise?
“do you think that Filipinos in general treat other Filipinos who happen to be THEIR servants better or worse than Chip Tsao treats Louise?”
Like in all things, we cannot generalize. People’s individual kindness, compassion, and upbringing come into play.
Treated shabbily or treated worse, defined:
* Crappy congested quarters
* Crappy food
* 16 hour work day (at times 24 hrs)
* No medical/dental insurance
* Substandard wages
* Verbally abusive employers/family members/relatives
* Only one day off
***
Having said that, who are we kidding, when most Filipinos treat other Filipinos shabbily, they are most likely to treat their servants worse.
All these collective denials brings the words ipokrito, pakitang tao, plastic (phoney) to mind.
*****
Let’s not generalize but we can speculate:
– around 85%-90% (feel free to provide your own empirical estimate)of Filipinos treat other Filipinos, who happen to be THEIR servants, shabbily.
– around 10%-15% (feel free to provide your own empirical estimate)of Filipinos treat other Filipinos, who happen to be THEIR servants, well.
***
As to wiping asses, it pays good money, and is recession-proof – so what’s the problem, one would rather earn a pittance feel superior by being called “ser” or “mam” by the janitor and security guard??? And by the way, the punas pwet gets to address the CEO on a first name basis not “mam” or “sir”, like katulongs do.
There are PUBLIC servants. There are PRIVATE servants. There are RELIGIOUS servants.
PUBLIC servants treat their masters (Filipino people) shabbily.
PRIVATE servants are treated by their masters shabbily.
RELIGIOUS servants (believers) are treated shabbily by God. Prayers are ignored. Prayers are not answered. It’s better for PUBLIC servants, no matter how corrupt, listens to complaints and has better batting average in answering our prayers (complaints)
RELIGIOUS servants and PUBLIC servants, regardless they’re treated shabbily THEY ARE STILL LOYAL TO THEIR MASTERS :)
PUBLIC servants are only loyal to no one … EXCEPT money :)
Kung ang debate doon na sa OFW and helpers, i get reminded of Hyperwage Theory. Maganda sana yon ang i-push ng government.
Ano ang Hyperwage Theory jeannie?
BenignO :
You could have done better justice to your commentary posting Einstein’s photo instead of yours, or is that a real photo of yourself?
Labeling Filipinos, labeling us, as “hollow-heads”, “tiny minds” , give us a break!!! — you and Chip Tsao are really birds of the same feather, you both are very good with your put-downs, you both think that you are God’s only intelligent creations in this universe. Is there a bone of humility left in your body at all?
Excuse me, but IT’S NOT THAT SIMPLE, REALLY! Not all of us are “hollow-headed” or possessing of “tiny minds”.
And this is why.
We have domestic helpers in our family and because we live the word “family” in our own household, they are considered part of family — they eat the same food, they eat with us; no, they don’t sleep with us, they have their own very decent room accommodations and we forbid them to call us “Ma’m” or “Sir” even our very own “Ate” or “Kuya”. We don’t want them to further look down on themselves, if, that is, IF they perceive themselves to be inferior working as househelps. For the kind of money they are getting, we thought the best that we can do for them, as their employers, is to make them feel good about what they’re doing, no matter how low others perceive their jobs to be; no matter how inferior they (househelps) picture themselves to be.
Yes, we’d like to consider ourselves as made of a different grain —humble and compassionate, but certainly not “hollow-headed” or “tiny-minded”. And, yes, — we feel for, we emphatize with and we respect those domestic helpers in Hongkong.
Excuse me, I didn’t get my two masteral degrees, to be labeled as “hollow-headed” or “tiny-minded”.
GET REAL, BENIGNO!, you’re not the only intelligent creature God has created. And don’t call me “onion-skinned” either!
ka jojo says:
April 8, 2009 at 8:44 pm
another viewpoint is written in this Pinoy OFW’s website
see link below
http://streetstrategist.blogspot.com/
this is a free country so contradicting ideas should be tolerated
Lamberto,
As discussed before in this website quoted from a blog somewhere else:
With your two master’s degrees, what have you done as rewards for your servants loyalty, five more years of servanthood?
Have your two masters degrees uplifted your own servants conditions, or you have neven even thought of gettin them out of servanthood and into the mainstream job market?
Is that good or bad? That they have remained servants in your home, and forever?
barbiedoll,
good you asked. happily for them, and with all the encouragements they got from my wife and I, they went back to their respective provinces where they , we were told, are toiling for themselves and earning their 3 meals a day.
whether their economic lot is better than before, we don’t know . what they told us is they are happier now. which is the more important thing, for them and for us.
happily for us, too, we’re back to doing household things ourselves. we do not have domestic helpers, or SERVANTS, or tsimays — whatever labels we put on them— we do not have any househelps anymore.
does that make you happy , too?
lamberto
No tsimays ANYMORE? ANYMORE? bec ur kids have grown up? If you had more kids, you would hire again servants? Our mentality is servants, servants servants.
Wala nang katulog. they released them back to the provinces (discrimination: taga provincia ay katulong?)
You no longer have servants not bec you felt sensitive to the provincianos but bec you NO LONGER HAVE ANY USE for them.
typical MASTER-SLAVE structure in the philippines. We are a Nation of Servants after all. We cant live without servants.
Dude, just because you have multiple masters degrees and treat you servants this way or that does not mean you are representative of the society you belong to any more than Lea Salonga or Manny Pacquiao is representative of Pinoys as a people.
Congratulations on your achievemetns as an individual. But for every one of you or me, there will be a hundred thousand Pinoys who will overshadow with dysfunction what we achieve.
And that is what is real about Da Pinoy. :D
nice piece lambert0. :)
JCC
You have the same case with lamberto: You NO LONGER HAVE ANY USE FOR SERVANTS so you dont have them anymore. BUT you had, and you will if you had children again, or when you reach 70 years old.
not that we do not need servants, but how we wish we could afford them. but what has that to do with the issue at hand?
It’s not even all about living abroad, jcc.
I used to buy my groceries at Makati Supermart in Alabang (figure that out — Makati Supermart in Alabang!).
I noticed that foreigners buying groceries would have their kids in tow, sometimes even carrying or holding on to one with one hand while lifting items from their trollies onto the checkout conveyor with the other hand.
Compare that to some Pinoy families who go to the mall with an entourage of yayas and maids — often with a one-to-one yaya-to-child ratio.
best of the worst lot Benign0. we have lots of kababayan whose opportunities had eclipsed them and would rather become yayas than beg on the streets.
is not part of the problem too are people who entered married life without adequate resources to support a family and therefore would offer their children to well-off families as yayas afterwards?
i cannot see myself being blamed for the pitiful situation of our maids where the problem was due to their irresponsible parents.
has any of you read Bentulan’s hyperwage theory? Any reader of BusinessWorld here? Years ago, he wrote that the solution to all this OFW forced migration is to identify the problem that is causing our perennial poverty problem. He said if you cannot identify the cause, then how can you recommend a fix? Suprisingly, many many years ago, he identified the problem as: low wages of the maids. Give the maids high wages is his unorthodox solution to the economic problem of this country and other third world countries like Africa. It was very suprising and nobody ever has put that idea before – The maids is the key to our wealth. I cannot explain it to you but he has made the PDF of this book available via email in many pinoy egroups. Google it and you can download it maybe.
I worked in HK and I did not mind being called a domestic helper. The difference though is I did not want to remain a DH so even in HK, I was always at the library brushing up on my programming. Also, I took time to wander around the city just like a tourist so that I can see interesting things. I was also busy with church. I saved up all my money and found an employer in Canada. So you see I spent 3 years as a nanny and then upgraded and found a job in Canada in my field. There is nothing wrong with working in HK and I know a lot of DH who became millionaires in PI courtesy of their employers here in HK as well as employing thrift through the years. A lot of them stayed in HK and became citizens and they were able to bring a lot of their relatives to work in the offices in HK. There are lots of Chinese who would want to work in HK as domestics but they will not qualify since they can not speak English. So rather than a badge of shame, all domestic helpers in every part of the world should be proud since they have a lot to offer in terms of being caring, nurturing, and ability to communicate. I do not deny that abuse sometimes occur but our government should be told that they have to take more care and be more mindful of the migrant OFW so that there is an agency that can help them when they help in any part of the world. As for being called a nation of servants who cares? It is one man’s opinion and there is some truth to that, But it does not mean it has to stay that way. If we start individually and collectively work towards improving our lot, then we can also become a nation of enterpreneurs or a nation of hardworking, highly educated, computer literate nation.
What is wrong with you? Matter of fact is everyone’s a servant. From the maids, to the regular employees, to the managers, to the business owners, to the CEO. Everyone has someone to serve be it their employers, customers, board of directors. The literal translation of servant is not the issue. It’s the meaning behind it, repressed dreams or having to swallow one’s pride. Very few grow up dreaming to become maids. For most, they become maids to support their dreams. Being a maid is just what you do in between or for now until you get to what you want. Please be a bit more mindful, that HK article just came out and here you are in your round about way agreeing. Don’t give another country a reason to belittle us by using your excuse, it dampens the spirits man. Other nations get labeled nation of entrepreneurs, or innovative nations. Both servants in their own craft. Why would you settle for just the word servants to go with your nation? Our nation wants more, and the words have to reflect that. I’m pretty mad at you, if you feel like replying your computer server has my e-mail adress.
nice piece rosa, vanessa, where have you been all these time. nice to hear from someone with my own point of view. hehehehe!
Just call me the silent Filpino who is tired of all these nonsense. The first thing I shed when I left is being sensitive about everything and be tough. I take the good and just the leave the bad alone and just associated with similar people. Actually Chip Tsao does not represent the Chinese people who were very good to me and my family and even helped me to come to Canada and to this day still gives me moral support and they are very proud to have been able to have helped me prosper.
We should pull ourselves by the bootstrap and not rely on others to define us.
Allow me to repeat what I mentioned earlier in another thread.
There was a time, not too long ago, when many Filipinos took grave offense at pictures and portrayals of fellow-Filipinos wearing ethnic costumes or performing ethnic dances or depicted in an ethnic setting of some kind. Those Filipinos of yesteryear were afraid such illustrations would lead to all Filipinos being regarded by foreigners as “savages.”
There is no difference between that unfortunate and old-fashioned attitude and the attitude behind the responses to the “nation of servants” remark. Those attitudes are more about fear of how foreigners will regard Filipinos rather than about authentic patriotic pride.
Today, we all enjoy our world-famous Bayanihan dance troupe and we are proud of our ethnic talent in all spheres from music to textiles.
Hopefully, our attitudes as regards servants will also change one day.
While everyone else is so ruffled at “nation of servants”, I was having a great laugh at
“Oh yes. The government of the Philippines would certainly be wrong if they think we Chinese are prepared to swallow their insult and sit back and lose a Falkland Islands War in the Far East. They may have Barack Obama and the hawkish American military behind them, but we have a hostage in each of our homes in the Mid-Levels or higher.”
***
Vocabulary for the day:
holistic
Main Entry:
ho·lis·tic Listen to the pronunciation of holistic
Pronunciation:
\hō-ˈlis-tik\
Function:
adjective
Date:
1926
1 : of or relating to holism 2 : relating to or concerned with wholes or with complete systems rather than with the analysis of, treatment of, or dissection into parts
***
Finish reading the entire article, instead of being stuck up in a middle paragraph or two words para holistic :D
“why do we feel insulted by being called a “nation of servants”?”
Well, because we are NOT the only nation of servants on this planet.
If we allow other countries to label us as a nation of servants, then other racists such Chip Tsao would follow suit. The Philippines is a country with a vast pool of talent and educated professionals who, by the way, choose to work overseas — away from their families —- because of better opportunities and better pay.
True, there is nothing wrong with being a servant — be it a maid or an office employee or whatever job one might have. And true, one way or another, we are all servants of someone. But so do a billion other people around the globe — not just the Filipinos — but the Americans, the Italians, the Australians, the Japanese, the Germans, etc…including The Chinese, we all have someone to serve, right?
Perhaps if that Chinese bigot called America a nation of servants, it wouldn’t be so insulting after all. But then again it was only us and us alone that earned that stigma — now, therein lies the insult, if you come to think it.
it is exactly for the reason that there are many “nations of servants” that provides restraint to a work which was actually directed against the Chinese government – for bullying a nation of servants yet being mum against the Russians.
What?
Servant is a “preferred means of livelihood?”
Prostitution is also a preferred means of livelihood?
Must be kidding. Using the wrong ideas will lead one to wrong conclusions.
Blame the govt leaders who CONTINUE the policy of exporting our OFWs, maids, gardners, etc.