Meeting Filipinos working in Dubai

We were already 15 minutes into our boarding on our Cathay Pacific flight CX921 at the Chep Lap Kok airport in Hongkong when the captain announced that something was amiss in the Philippines, which he couldn’t yet say; so we had to wait on the plane for further advice. Later the pilot told us that the radar in Manila was out of commission. However, forty-minutes later, the radars were back in use, so we were able to come home.

From the news reports, we gathered that the back-up power supply for the Radars under the control of the Civil Aviation Authority of the Philippines (CAAP) did not work when there was a power outage at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA) at around 2:00 o’clock. It was restored around 4:30 pm while we were on board the Cathay Pacific Airbus. So what’s new with the Philippines, where even the back up systems doesn’t work anymore and caused the disruption of so many flights?

Lucky for us, we were the first to fly back to the Philippines and Cathay Pacific didn’t have to put us in hotels until we could get another flight back home. But the other aircraft from the other airlines had no choice, but to go back to where they originated and house those passengers at their expense because of the SNAFU (Situation Normal, All Fucked Up!) in Manila.

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We just came from Dubai City on the United Arab Emirates (UAE) which was nothing but a backwater port on the Straits of Hormuz in the Persian Gulf as late as the 1990’s and today, the old Dubai is hardly recognizable because of the vision of their ruler His Excellency Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, whose dynastic family has ruled Dubai since 1833. But the present ruler had a vision for his nation when the oil runs out, so he embarked in making Dubai a tourist destination unparalleled at least in the Middle East.

Come to think of it… we too have our dynastic rulers-cum-politicians. Our present President, Pres. Gloria Macapagal Arroyo (GMA) is the daughter of Pres. Diosdado Macapagal, while another son of a President in the person of Sen. Noynoy Aquino already declared his intention to run for President, as if it were his birth right. Yet look what has happened to this country of too many politicians? Thanks to them, Filipinos are leaving this country for a better life abroad and we saw a lot of them making a living in Dubai, where close to 80% of its population are expatriates!

It was a great opportunity for me to observe the Filipinos working in Dubai. Yes, the staffs at the Dhow Palace Hotel were Filipinos. When we visited the fabulous Atlantis the Palm Resort and the world’s most luxurious hotel, the 7-Star Burj Al Arab, it was a Filipino sales staff that showed us their rooms. But all the hotels we visited were run by expatriates of other nationalities. But I noticed that the Filipinos are the most dominant in the good jobs in the hotel industry.

From my short interviews with the Pinoys working in Dubai, I learned that all the money they earn goes into their pockets as there is no income tax. Most low income Filipinos (like those working as chambermaids or roomboys in the hotels) are given free housing (nope Pinoys don’t live in slums there) in an area not far from their place of work. Hence, they can really save money, which most of them send back to their relatives here, of course at the expense of being away from their families, which causes many marital problems.

One of the major problems when you work abroad is loneliness. This is something, Filipinos experience when they work in far-flung places, even in the United States. But not in Dubai City where Filipinos can be found almost anywhere and everywhere! I’ve been to Daly City, the most “Filipino” City in San Francisco, USA, but even Daly City cannot come close to the number of Filipinos working in Dubai.

Perhaps the best place where we met Filipinos was at the CarrçFour a French owned grocery-store-cum-Price-Club, where almost every other salesperson and cashier were Filipinos and yes, it was where Filipinos on their day off were shopping with their children and yes, including their maids. Indeed, Filipino families who are so used to having maids, also bring their own maids when they work abroad and many of them were shopping at the CarrçFour inside the City Center Shopping Mall.

Tourism is big in Dubai even if they started very late. For instance, the Dubai National Museum is housed inside the Al Fahidi Fort is something that we should have done to the Fort San Pedro a long time ago. The Kempinski mall is something out of this world, for they have a huge indoor Skiing slope complete with snow and it can only happen in oil-rich Dubai. But making our Fort San Pedro a truly tourist destination needs some imagination, as it doesn’t cost that much. But can we even copy Dubai’s Fort?

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