If the threat pushes through, today, August 28, will be "No Remittance Day." What that means is that OFWs, wherever they might be around the globe, will not be sending a single cent to their families back home in the Philippines. The protest is aimed at showing the anger of OFWs over plans by Philippine Customs to conduct random inspections on the balikbayan boxes they send home. The anger has apparently not subsided even after Noynoy Aquino ordered Customs not to proceed with the plan.
The OFWs are apparently emboldened by both their huge numbers -- around 10 million of them scattered in virtually every country in the world -- and the support they are getting from politicians who, facing election, have found a convenient issue to ride on. Do the math -- 10 million OFWs multiplied by how many family members of voting age they have in the Philippines.
Thus angered and emboldened, the OFWs decided to vent their anger and boldness beyond words in social media into real concrete action such as launching "No Remittance Day" today, that is if they decide to go ahead with the plan. The resort to this type of action apparently derives from the idea fed to them by government that it is their remittances -- estimated at some $25 billion annually -- that is keeping the Philippine economy afloat.
Senator Chiz Escudero, one of the politicians taking up the cudgels for OFWs, said government would lose at least $60 million for every day that OFWs will not remit any money to their families back home. Why Escudero assumes the remittances will be a loss for government, I do not know. Be that as it may, I think the bigger loser will not be the government or the economy but their families.
And if the anger of OFWs cannot be soothed by a day's worth of remittances unsent and decide to extend "No Remittance Day" for another day, or two days, or a week or even a month, then I would be much more interested in knowing who suffers far more -- the government, the economy, or their families. Of course the answer is very plain to see and I would like to know how our smart and quick politicians react to that one.
You see, the issue may only seem like the balikbayan box to the OFWs and the vote-hungry politicians and other sectors that are just as myopic. But I would like to challenge everyone to start thinking out of the box, to go beyond the "happiness" semantics and see the thing for what it has become -- the creation of a special and pampered class of citizens for whom everything is accorded as a privilege.
Once you start thinking out of the box, you might hopefully realize that OFWs only make up 10 percent of the population. There are far more Filipinos who are right here in the Philippines for whom their own government has neglected and chosen to treat very shabbily. And that is unfair. If the 10 percent of the population can remit $25 billion a year, how much do you think the rest of the home-bound Filipinos comprising the remaining 90 percent contribute to the economy?
And yet the government chooses to conveniently ignore that fact that it is the Filipinos at home who make up the bedrock of everything in the country. The OFW remittances only constitute an economic buffer that ensures the Philippines will survive in a pinch. But a buffer is just what it is, a buffer. All it does is make things easier. But the real life of the Philippines is rooted in the bedrock that is the mass of the population that is here.
It is very romantic to talk about the hardships and sacrifices of OFWs and how much a box of happiness means to those that receive it. But what about those who are right here in the Philippines whom their own government has neglected by looking the other way when it comes to hard work, low wages, high taxes, runaway crime, crumbling infrastructure, poor health services, fatal traffic.
Filipinos in the Philippines may be with their families, but they also bear the pain of watching their families never get enough for the kind of hardships they put up to earn a living. Filipinos in the Philippines may not bring home boxes of happiness, but they do strive to fill a shopping bag with what their wages can afford to bring the local version of happiness to their loved ones -- happiness that often consists of a few kilos of rice, a few cans of sardines, a few packs of noodles.
And yet the Filipinos at home, who at 90 percent of the population make up the bedrock of Philippine society as known and recognized by the whole worlds as the Filipino nation, are never regarded as heroes. If some of them run afoul of the law, the law is not bent or waived as they would for OFWs and they quickly get jailed, if lucky, or salvaged if otherwise. They cannot afford lawyers and rely on the PAO -- no president or vice president to personally take up their cause.
In the event that real heroes do emerge, such as the SAF 44, their commander-in-chief prefers to be somewhere else laughing among foreign cars instead of meeting their remains in the event that they die -- as in fact they did in Mamasapano in a supreme sacrifice for their country. There are in this country three classes of citizens -- the rich and powerful and the OFWs who belong to the two privileged classes, and the rest of us second class citizens.