MJ Veloso’s Story: The Dark Side of Philippine Labor Migration Policy

Image attribution: Adam Cohn on Flickr

The tragic story of Mary Jane Veloso is just a small part of a bigger story of labor migration in the Philippines. Her story did not start at the time she left the country to work as a domestic worker. Rather, it started a long time ago even before she was born.

But to be able to understand more about her story, it is imperative that we look at it in a wider context of the labor migration policy of the Philippines, in particular the labor export policy. Wright Mills, a well-known American sociologist, argued that we should look at the personal experience of an individual from a holistic perspective. Using sociological imagination, we should examine the interplay of both the personal case of MJ Veloso and the social forces that shaped her story.

Revisiting the past

It was in 1970’s that the Philippine government under President Ferdinand Marcos started to implement the labor export policy to address a problem of high unemployment rate in the country. The underlying motivation for the adoption of this policy was a high demand of labor in the Middle East due to oil boom and massive infrastructures. Obviously the Marcos government viewed it as a strategic alternative to the domestic labor market as the economy of the country that time was struggling to survive. In fact, it was the OFWs’ remittances that kept the Philippine economy afloat during the gigantic crises that hit the country in the ‘80s. As a recognition for their enormous contribution for saving the country’s economy from the brink of collapse, the government dubbed them as “the modern-day heroes” (bagong mga bayani) of the country.

Over the years, the labor export policy has become an effective governmental instrument in paving the way for hundreds of thousands of jobless Filipinos who were wallowing in poverty to work abroad. The record shows that around 10.5 million Filipinos have migrated to foreign countries for various reasons. But economic was the most prevalent. A countless number of Filipinos leave the country every year in search for a better future for their families. Undeniably, many have succeeded and brought flowering stories of their success to their relatives and friends back home.

Notwithstanding the economic benefits that the country has gained, the export labor policy is not without a social cost. Aside from “brain drain” that has caused the country a huge loss of skilled workers and professionals such as doctors, engineers, teachers, nurses etc., and the breakdown of many families that have ruined the future of many youngsters, there have been thousands of appalling cases of migration-related incidents in the country since the adoption of the policy. And the case of MJ Veloso was just the latest one.

The many Mary Jane Velosos

Mary Jane Veloso, a 30-year-old single mother, comes from a poor family in Nueva Ecija. She was a high school drop-out and married at the early young age. Her life became very difficult after she broke up with her sons’ father and had to provide a daily subsistence for them alone. Extreme poverty pushed her to decide to leave the country for work. Ironically, fate brought her to Indonesia where she was arrested for allegedly smuggling heroin in a suitcase. After years of trial, MJ Veloso was found guilty and was sentenced to death by firing squad, despite her claim that she was just a victim of a drug syndicate. Her lamentable case galvanized the public conscience on a national scale that triggered massive protests all over the country.

Whether she was innocent or not, her tragic case, along with other string of cases before hers, has served as a reminder of the dark side of the government’s migration policy. It therefore raises a basic question of whether it is high time for the government to abandon its long standing labor export policy. On the other hand, it also engenders a question on readiness of the government to reverse a policy. What will happen, therefore, if the government does it? Can our country survive?

The dark side of labor migration

In a world that has become increasingly globalized, labor migration has become one of the most challenging issues facing many nations in the 21th Century. Most countries view it as an important policy framework of governance in the context of political, economic, socio-cultural development of a society.

In the case of the Philippines, the current government has continued to capitalize more on labor migration for economic recovery and development. According to Florencio Abad, Secretary of the Philippine Department of Budget and Management, the total remittances based on government data hit $26.9 billion last year (2014). Expectedly, as the world economy expands, overseas employment opportunities will also increase. It means more Filipinos will go abroad and, as a consequence, more remittances will flow into the economy. Hence, the global condition will continue to dictate our country’s labor migration policy. This trend will carry on regardless of who the sitting president of the Philippines is. As long as the Philippine economy remains heavily dependent on remittances, labor migration will continue to define the country’s national interests, and make the president like a spectator without a choice to reverse the tide of the game.

While the Philippines is taking an advantage of the global situation in terms of labor migration , the same should not lull our government to be complacent in looking for other options that may effectively free our economy from the chain of dependency on external economic forces . They should match this global opportunity with policy measures that promote investment in productive industries, strengthen the base of our agricultural sector, develop the spirit of entrepreneurship of our booming populace, and among others.

Unless the government implements those measures, we cannot expect an “economic miracle” out of hard-earned remittances from our labor migrants. No question, remittances increase domestic output, but such growth does not trickle down to the majority of the Filipino – the poor. While remittances proved to be effective in survival strategy, there is no guarantee that it can be effective for our development without effective economic policy measures.

Ironically, without economic development, there will be more Veloso stories in the future. Many will fall prey to organized criminal syndicates. Many more will suffer in the hands of abusive employers who don’t know how to be human. For the MJ Velosos of our land, they have only one choice in life: to survive the hardship. But for the government, there are many choices to liberate its people from the menace of labor migration. Unfortunately, this does not include a labor export policy.

#migration #laborexport #MaryJaneVeloso #development #economy