What is striking about the immigration bill now pending in the United States is how some countries are lobbying for more and easier access for their citizens to get into the land of promise. Yet, over here in the Philippines, the announced thrust of the government is to slow the brain drain, and lure Filipinos to stay home. Why the difference? What gives?
For example, we have South Korea, which has spent millions of dollars to hire lobbyists in Washington. The goal: make more working or immigration visas available for Koreans. With quota cuts being threatened for highly skilled workers, South Korea apparently wants to make sure it will be easy not just for its smart phones, but also its smart citizens, to enter America.
But why? Following conventional Filipino thinking, wouldn't that be tantamount to allowing your best and brightest to benefit American businesses, rather than the local companies currently dominating global commerce, like in Korea's case, Samsung and LG? Why is Korean President Park Geun-Hye flying off to America and gladhanding American businessmen and politicians, with visa quotas in the agenda, just when North Korea is rattling its nuclear guns at her? Why hire CIA analysts and former White House aides, and four different lobbying firms, to make calls and plead and pray for visas?
South Korea is an economic juggernaut. Why is it pushing for the cream of its crop to go to the United States? Are they all going to become economic spies for their homeland? Surely not.
Exhibit B: The Prime Minister of Ireland. Reports have it that he wangled a private talk with Obama to press for thousands of visas for Irish citizens. These visas would allow Irish citizens, even if they are only high school graduates, and not the highly technical category we would naturally expect, to hie off to the U.S. and enter the job market.
But hey, isn't the population of Ireland so small already, just one of our provinces can decide to overrun it if it up and planted itself there? Isn't Ireland worried that pretty soon St. Patrick's day will be celebrated bigger in New York than in Cork? (Or maybe it is already). Why would Prime Minister Enda Kenny want more Irishmen to leave its shores? Why not keep them productive within leprechaun-landia?
Even Poland has been active in the scene, trying to get America to put Poland in the visa-free category for Polish tourists. Just this month, Poland hosted Vice President Biden and various Congressmen in its American embassy. Given that Poland's tourists are one of the main sources of illegal immigration, successfully pushing for this reclassification will open the back door to more Polish migrants to the US.
And now, to our fair shores. The Philippines suffers from overpopulation and underemployment. Those stresses are being partially addressed by the “out-fluxâ€, and the country has benefited from the millions of overseas workers, with remittances reaching 5.1 billion dollars in the first quarter of this year, up five percent from last year.
But all this is not necessarily a good thing. President Aquino has been previously criticized by migrant workers groups for not doing enough to create local jobs. They've accused him of allowing citizens to continue suffering social and cultural dislocation, just to be able to bring home bread to the mesa. So the upshot of this was, the new official thrust of reversing the official labor export policy. Which may be a paradox now, considering what other countries are doing.
Should we, instead, send our most effective negotiators to the Capitol to seduce lawmakers and win more visas for Filipino wannabe migrants? Do we spend tax money for expensive lobbying to support the American dream of our best brains, who, after one generation will have squandered their genetic potential as their offspring blends into mainstream America?
South Korea and Ireland apparently think so. Do they know something we don't?