MIGRANTS
WATCH
‘Keng
Iraq’*
1 out of 4 OFWs in Iraq are women
Filipino
women too take the risks in Iraq – even dying itself. “Pag namatay
ka dun may pera na matatanggap ang pamilya ko.
Kung dito ako mamatay baka wala ako kahit pambili lang ng kabaong”
(If I die in Iraq, my family would receive some money. If I die here, I
probably wouldn’t even have money for a coffin), one woman waiting to be
sent to Iraq said.
BY
DABET CASTAñEDA
Bulatlat
Phoebe
Baga and Corazon Tiglao (left) wait for the lifting of the ban on the
deployment of OFWs in Iraq, like so many other women (right) fighting off
fatigue and boredom while in queue at the recruitment agency.
Photo by
Dabet Castañeda
Around
700 middle-aged Filipino women were milling around the entrance of the
Anglo-European Services, Inc., a recruitment agency located in the middle
of the Makati business district, when Bulatlat visited it on July
28. Each one was waiting and hoping that the person serving as
barker would finally call her name for an interview or give her departure
schedule.
“Mag-a-abroad
kami” (We’re going abroad), each of them muttered when this writer
asked what they were doing outside the recruitment agency.
“Nokarin
ikayo munta?” (Where are you going?), I asked almost everyone in the
crowd.“Keng Iraq” (To Iraq) was their common answer.
Looking
around, I realized almost half of the applicants were women, more than
40-years-old, applying for whatever job they could get in war-torn Iraq.
This, despite the Angelo dela Cruz kidnapping episode which has barely
died down.
Interviewed
by Bulatlat, Gilbert Arcilla, general manager of the Anglo-European
Services, Inc., confirmed that one-fourth of the labor force in Iraq is
made up of women. More than 1,000 Filipino women have in fact already been
sent to Camp Anaconda, north of Baghdad in Iraq to serve as janitresses
and laundrywomen for the U.S. military stationed there.
“The
ratio is 1:3,” Arcilla said. About 300 more will be hired and sent to
Iraq as soon as the ban on overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) is lifted by
the Macapagal-Arroyo administration, he added.
Peasant’s
wife
Looking
pale and tired, Phoebe Baga, 42, seemed to badly need some rest that
afternoon, which was very humid. She tried to fight her sleepiness by
alternately standing and sitting, waiting to be called.
Phoebe
had been waiting in line for the last three days and had not come home
since. She left her six
children to the care of her husband, Danilo, a farmer, in her hometown
Lubao, province of Pampanga. Pampanga is the province of erstwhile
Filipino hostage Angelo de la Cruz – and tens of thousands of other OFWs.
“Hindi
sapat ang pagsasaka ng asawa ko para mabuhay at makapag-aral ang mga anak
namin” (My husband’s earnings as a farmer are not enough to send
our children to school), she said. Her
first child is graduating from college while the second is a college
freshman. The other three are in high school and the youngest in the
second grade.
Phoebe’s
husband, who farms a hectare of land in Lubao, tries to make ends meet
with his earnings from farming but his efforts, though well appreciated,
were simply not enough to meet their family’s needs.
Phoebe
filed her application for a job in Iraq last March but was only
interviewed by her prospective British employer on July 13.
“Urgent kasi ang hiring sa babae nung July” (The hiring
of women became urgent by July), she said.
She
is actually excited to go to Iraq, she said, as the promised pay amounts
to PhP34,000 ($618.20) a month.
She
is ready to take the risks in Iraq, she said, even to die.
“Pag namatay ka dun may pera na matatanggap ang pamilya ko.
Kung dito ako mamatay baka wala ako kahit pambili lang ng kabaong,”
(If I die in Iraq, my family would receive some money. If I die here, I
probably wouldn’t even have money for a coffin), she said.
Lift
the ban
If
she could talk to President Macapagal-Arroyo, the one thing that Corazon
Tiglao, 43, would tell her would be to urge her to lift the ban on OFWs
leaving for Iraq.
“Yun
lang ang nakaka-delay sa pag-alis namin”
(It’s what’s delaying our departure), Corazon said.
Corazon,
who hails from the town of Mexico in Pampanga and is a mother of eight,
said she has been going back and fort from her province to the recruitment
agency in Makati since January.
She
needs the job in Iraq badly because some of her children have already
stopped studying. Her husband is a contractual worker whenever he could
get a job – in factories or construction projects. His daily salary of
PhP180 ($3.27) falls short of the family needs.
Corazon
said she borrowed money from private lenders for transportation and food
in following up her application – a fact that makes her feel regretful.
“Imbes na yung inuutang ko ay ipambili ko ng pagkain ng mga anak ko,
ginagamit ko pa sa pamasahe” (Instead of spending the money I
borrowed for food for my children, I have had to use to it for
transportation), she said.
She
has not gone home for five days.“Sayang lang pamasahe”
(Transport fare would just go to waste), she said.
Like
most of the applicants, Phoebe and Corazon sleep on the sidewalk during
the times that they decide not to go home.
Since the start of the rainy season however, they have been
sleeping in nearby houses for a fee. They pay PhP30 ($0.54) for a night, another PhP10 ($0.18) for
using the bathroom and PhP2-5 ($0.03-.09) for using the toilet.
They
eat at nearby turo-turo stores (sidewalk food stalls) whose prices
are considerably lower than in restaurants or even fastfood chains. They
can even buy half an order of a dish, costing them only PhP15 ($0.27),
while rice is only PhP5 ($0.09).
“Kailangan
magtipid para may pang-gastos pa kami sa susunod na araw” (We have
to save money for the next day), Corazon said.
Located
along Solchuago street in Pasong Tirad, Makati, the Anglo-European
agency’s women applicants were mostly in their ‘40s. It’s the
agency’s age requirement, they said.
This
is the age, the prospective employers reportedly say, that is less prone
to sexual harassment, as well as when the women have become proficient in
household chores.
The
women applicants all agreed. And add one more thing: At this point in
their lives and with the economic crisis, they are ready to take the risk
for their families’ survival. Bulatlat
*Kapampangan,
the Pampanga native language, for “To Iraq.”
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