Editorial - Decent jobs

Six undocumented Filipino women intending to work as domestic helpers in Lebanon were intercepted at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport before they could depart the Philippines. What gave them away? They were dressed as nuns.

The incident would have been quite funny had it not been so sad. It is heart-breaking to note the great lengths to which many Filipinos would go just to take their chances at employment in foreign lands.

To work overseas is tough. You leave your families and loved ones behind. You do not know what awaits you in a foreign land. But it is something an ever increasing number of Filipinos have decided they needed to do if only to haul themselves out of certain misery here at home.

There are few decent jobs here and fewer still that guarantee decent benefits. To be sure, there are new, so-called sunshine industries that offer above average benefits. But they often take their toll elsewhere, often in emotional and psychological stress factors.

But by and large, the real jobs that offer any real chance of moving up the economic ladder happen to be located overseas. And that is where the Filipinos have to be, never mind if they have to be dressed up as nuns vainly hoping to get past immigration.

What makes it doubly sad is the fact that the Filipinos willing to suffer everything just to work overseas are the very workers fired with great ambition and deep sense of responsibility. These ought to be the kind of workers we need to push our country forward.

Instead, these great Filipinos help form the backbone of the progress for the countries they find themselves in. They may be remitting huge amounts of dollars to prop up the local economy, but it is their host countries that they are truly and realistically helping.

President Aquino has made fighting corruption his main platform of governance. It is hard to disagree with that. But he must realize that the fight can never be won unless he provides most Filipinos with jobs decent enough to give them a fighting chance to resist corruption.