Plain Insult, No other Name

An accountant- friend once casually related how she had been asked a couple of times whether she was a direct hire. A “direct hire” is someone who has been sponsored by a Canadian employer into working in Canada. Most of the time, a direct hire is a nanny who has worked in and comes “directly” from Hong Kong. Having been asked such a question several times, this friend did not even show a slight tinge of being annoyed. Why? Because like the many nannies the Philippines has sent overseas, this accountant understands fully well that a job is a job is a job. It is a job to be an accountant. It is a job to be a nanny. Both are honest jobs that bring hard-earned money into the table.

In my line of work, I’ve come across countless of Filipinos who immigrated to Canada, either directly from the Philippines or coming from other countries, most notably from the Middle East. I’ve also encountered a lot of “kababayans” who left behind great jobs in Manila, and who sometimes settled for jobs well below the ones they did before. And I’ve also met a lot of nannies that’ve gotten out of being nannies, and those who stayed being nannies.

Having interacted and assisted these decent, hard working folks, I was dismayed, no, enraged by an article written by a British-born Hong Kong journalist, Chip Tao, who spoke of (according to him, “satirized’) the Philippines as a country of servants. “'As a nation of servants, you don't flex your muscles at your master, from where you earn most of your bread and butter,'” he says.

This whole sentence strips the country of its dignity, because when the author used the words "servant" and "master," he did it to draw an analogy of the whole Philippines-China relationship; which infers, the latter as inferior and the former as superior.

But truly, I was more enraged at those who said, firstly, that it was really a satire. And secondly, that the Filipinos should not be shooting the messenger (the journalist) but should really put the blame on the country’s political and business leadership for having allowed the country to wallow in poverty and lack of economic/business muscles/direction/local investment. One well-known writer even wrote that when he goes to Hong Kong and sees the maids congregated in a park, enjoying their day-off, he gets “embarrassed!” by the sight. I sent my comment to him.

Granted, yes, the Philippines was such a promising, young nation some forty or fifty years ago, when Singapore or even Vietnam was tottering on the economic fringes of Southeast Asia. Yes, corruption costs the country millions in lost opportunities – lost investments, lost human resourc es, etc – which then translate into underdevelopment, unemployment, misery, utter poverty. True. But what do the people do, in the meantime, while waiting for the country to be overhauled? In developed countries, unemployed people get welfare assistance as a temporary means until they get a job; not in developing ones.

These folks (the servants, referred to by the Hong Kong journalist) had to work, in the meantime. There’s rent to be paid, children to be fed, kids to be sent to school. It just so happens that the work is located elsewhere.

This is the century of political correctness/fairness; folks who work in the post office no longer find it amusing to be referred to as “going postal” in the crosswords. So, to satirize a country for being a nation of servants is a direct affront – politically incorrect, haughty, ignorant, enraging. Yes, we should get as mad as hell. Those Pinays who staged a rally in Hong Kong, bless their soul; they fought their fight themselves.

And for those Pinoys who found the article satirical and for those who saw another angle instead of directly tackling its demerit , I say, take a hike.

The issue of getting mad or being insulted should not have been questioned at all. It should have been a given.

The journalist has since then offered his apologies. Good.