Robyn Rodriguez,
"Domestic Debates: Constructions of Gendered Migration from the Philippines"
(page 7 of 8)
Eventually, however, the state was compelled to respond to the
growing protests against Contemplacion's hanging, which were expanding
far beyond the Philippines. It is perhaps precisely because the
"domestic debates" spilled over into the international area, with the
globalization of migrants' protests, that the state felt obliged to
finally act.
Republic Act 8042 (RA8042), passed very soon after the execution of
Flor Contemplacion, was a watershed insofar as it mandated many policies
very specifically related to better protecting women migrants.
Significantly, RA8042 appears to directly incorporate the sorts of
reforms advocated in SWS documents over the years. For instance, it
states in RA8042 that, "The State recognizes that the ultimate
protection to all migrant workers is the possession of skills. Pursuant
to this and as soon as practicable, the government shall deploy and/or
allow the deployment only to skilled Filipino workers."[36] For domestic
workers, who the state officially categorizes as "vulnerable workers,"
this has meant mandatory training programs prior to deployment overseas.
In addition to skills training, the state also expanded its worker
education programs, attempting to better disseminate "information of
labor and employment conditions, migration realities and other facts,
and adherence of particular countries to international standards on
human and workers' rights which will adequately prepare individuals into
making informed and intelligent decisions about overseas employment."[37]
Post-deployment, in countries of destination, RA8042 mandates government
services on-site that offer additional training and skills upgrading
programs. Moreover, the state provides legal and welfare services for
migrant workers in distress. Because the state has officially
incorporated a "gender sensitive" approach to migration policy, it means
that all of these programs attempt to address the specific problems
faced by migrant women.
Interviews of migration officials several years after RA8042 was
passed, however, reveal how migration reform is ultimately less about
the regulation of women's migration, but more about the regulation of
women migrants themselves.[38]
Interestingly, the ways bureaucrats and
other state officials attempt to regulate migrant women echo the very
same gendered ideas that the public and migrant advocates deployed in
their calls for migration reform.
A migration official in the POEA explains the purpose of women
workers' training, as well as their education through the PDOS, "Our
concern is that often these workers do not send money to the Philippines
or don't try to take care of family problems at home. These kinds of
seminars emphasize workers' responsibilities to their families." Yet
another migration official, a very high-ranking official of the POEA in
fact, explains that the state must provide domestic workers and
entertainers specific kinds of programs because, "There are lots of
social costs when a mother or elder sister is missing."
For these officials, state migration programs are aimed at orienting
women migrants toward the Philippines to actively cultivate their sense
of familial responsibility. The assumption is that women are not
already orienting themselves to their families' needs. As a
consequence, families suffer a number of "social costs." If the public
and migrant advocates pointed to increasing problems in migrant women's
family lives as a means of calling for migration reform, the bureaucrats
attempt to address these problems by trying to inculcate certain kinds
of family values amongst migrant women.
Indeed, if civil society actors ultimately called for the state to
assume better (paternal) custody of migrant women, it was clear in my
other interviews of officials that these gendered understandings about
state-citizen relations characterized their own views. In an interview
with a high-ranking migration official, who began to weep profusely
during the course of our discussion, she states:
We really need to take care of them. When I see the DH
[domestic helpers] and the OPAs [overseas performing artists], I just
cry. They're so innocent ... I really hope things change for them. We
really have to reach out to them, to give them self-respect and
confidence ... you know, when we are on the airplane or in the airport
traveling, when we have them next to us, deep inside we're
ashamed.
Here the official uses what can be characterized as familial language
in describing the state's role in regulating women's migration. The
state, in her words, must "take care of" domestic workers and
entertainers because they are "innocent." By doing so, she suggests,
the state will not only equip them with the ability to better negotiate
the challenges of working overseas, but also that the state may be able
to deal with the deep-seated sense of nationalist shame women's
migration produces.
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