Marketing Dreams, Manufacturing Heroes: The Transnational Labor Brokering of Filipino Workers

Chapter 4: Delivering “Our Contribution to the World”

Chapter 4 Delivering “Our Contribution to the World” Our government seems overly focused in happily punishing the recruitment agencies. I can’t blame them. There are those who abuse [their privileges and the law] and this has created a bad reputation for the overseas employment providers. What happens is that when we provide good employment opportunities for a thousand, there will be one casualty—a sad story or one unfortunate incident that happens. But as a result, the benefit of the one thousand is overshadowed by this one incident. —Victor Fernandez Jr., president of the Philippine Association of Service Exporters Inc. On January 17, 2002, the usual hustle and bustle of Malate, one of Manila’s busiest districts, was interrupted by a crowd of men and women who marched through its streets. Beginning at Malate Church and ending in the historic Intramuros, the marchers forged through the unruliness of the everyday traffic, hopeful that their umbrellas and bandanas would protect them from the oppressive sun of a typical humid Manila afternoon.1 They were certainly much braver than I, whose participant observation of this event was interrupted by momentary escapes to a nearby air-conditioned coffee shop, where I waited for the main event to unfold. Tightly huddled together, the marchers advanced quietly but in solidarity, determined to reach their final destination, the Philippine Department of Labor Employment (DOLE) office. Mostly dressed in black, the marchers presented a mysterious image to the increasingly curious public that they passed, who compared their gathering to a funeral procession. Even some of the DOLE guards jokingly asked among themselves, “Did anyone die?” The two 87 six-foot-long banners that preceded the demonstration read “War on Terrorism: Protect License Agencies, Prosecute Illegal Recruiters” and “Justice for Overseas Employment.” They hustled to the front of the DOLE building, positioning themselves in front of the press, which was waiting to capture the perfect image for next morning paper and create a headline of whatever standoff might happen. A truck approached. On top sat a man dressed in red, conspicuous in this sea of blackness. Holding a microphone and flanked by two giant speakers, he screamed at the top of his lungs that it was a protest against an “injustice” that would affect the lives of overseas Filipino workers. Everything would lead one to believe that these were overseas Filipino workers protesting about an exploitative system, but a closer look at the picket signs revealed otherwise. Two signs captured my attention: “Employment Providers: Pag-Asa ng Bayan” (Hope of the Country) and “Employment Providers: Makers of New Heroes.” The rally had, in fact, been organized primarily by the Federated Association of Manpower Exporters (FAME), a professional association representing six hundred recruitment agencies in the Philippines, and the man in red was one of their members.The rally was composed mainly of labor brokers—various staff and recruiters of Philippine-based private employment agencies and their allies—whose mobilization effort was fueled by the impending release of stringent new overseas recruitment rules from the state. These policy revisions were aimed directly at eliminating illegal recruitment practices within the private sector by increasing the licensing fee requirements for employment agencies and outlining a more precise classification of recruitment violations and corresponding penalties. For several months, prior to the rally, while the labor department moved forward with the revisions, the private sector clamored for public attention and sympathy to their plight as victims of misrepresentation . They proclaimed incessantly that they were not the “leeches” that the state made them out to be. After all, they produced and delivered overseas Filipino workers to the world, and were the “makers of [the state’s much touted] modern day heroes.” In fact, it was only a year before this policy change, on July 30, 2001, that President Arroyo issued Proclamation No. 76, declaring 2002 the Year of the Overseas M a r k e t i n g D r e a m s , M a n u f ac t u r i n g H e r o e s 88 Delivering “Our Contribution to the World” 89 Employment Providers in “grateful recognition of the significant contribution of private licensed agencies and their associations in helping provide overseas employment and welfare protection to millions of Filipino contract workers since 1976” (Arroyo 2001) As “employment providers,” agencies claimed that they were not enemies but partners of the state in...