Migrant Focus Magazine: Issue #2

Migrant's Focus Magazine: Issue #2

From the Director's Desk
2nd Issue

No Yuletide Cheers

For Filipino migrant workers, Christmas has always been both a happy and sad a affair. Happy because of the irrepressible Christmas spirit Filipinos have everywhere and sad because we are celebrating it without our families. This year, Christmas may be bleaker for the Overseas Filipino Workers and the Filipinos is general. Events of the past under the Estrada administration have made our Christmas more of a blue rather than a white one. This season, there may not even be "puto bungbong" or "bibingkas" on our families' tables.

The past year has seen the Filipinos coping with the soaring prices of basic commodities. The habitual oil price increases by the oil monopolies - sanctioned by the Estrada government - have made the wages of the Filipinos virtually useless. Even migrants feel the brunt of the ridiculous monthly oil price hikes as we are forced to increase our regular remittances to our families.

As oil prices soar high, the value of the Philippine peso steadily falls. The intensifying political and economic crisis in the Philippines has made the peso worthless. While unwitting migrants may think that P50 to US$1 is a good exchange rate, they will soon realize that one peso will not even buy them chewing gum anymore.

For migrant workers, taxes come in the form of the various exaction policies that the government imposes. Not contented with their long list of dubious fees, the Estrada government is bent on adding more fees on the list with the implementation of Executive Order 197 and the impending implementation of the OWWA Resolution 99-016. This is in addition to the BIR Memorandum which forces the tax-exempted migrant workers to file for income tax exemption or face a penalty of P1,000 (HK$200) - enough for a cavan of rice for our families back home.

While the majority of the Filipinos are in for a grim yuletide season, the people of Mindanao and the rest of the communities affected by the all-out war of Estrada may not even realize that Christmas is already here. Hundreds of thousands of civilians, Moros and Christians alike, have to contend living in cramped refugee camps in Mindanao. The war, which the government has unleashed against the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), has resulted to the loss of lives and the destruction of properties of the common folks of Southern Philippines.

In other parts of the Philippines, on the other hand, the people are suffering under the brutal Oplan Makabayan - the government's latest counterinsurgency operation against the communist guerillas. Intense military operations have prevented numerous farmers to till their land. It has also displaced thousands of families who are forced to leave their homes or else face the ferocious military who seems to be in the habit of tagging everybody as communists.

True, we may be facing a gloomy Christmas. But the Filipino people will not be facing it meekly. The movement to oust Estrada, which has been growing, testifies to the growing disgust for the present administartion. The struggle for societal changes is intensifying. The cries of defiance of the Filipino people are getting louder.

The ouster of Joseph Estrada will be the best Christmas gift for the people. As long as the majority of the people are forced by the system to unthinkable destituteness. As long as foreign superpowers plunder our economy at the expense of our national integrity; as long as violation of the people's democratic rights prevails; as long as millions are pushed out of the country to be enslaved in foreign land, the struggle will not stop.

When the Filipinos quest for freedom, democracy, and peace based on social justice triumphs, then Christmas will truly be a festivity for all.

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