That has to be the quote heard ’round the world. At least last week, when President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo uttered the phrase in her farewell speech, the final assessment of her reign before her highness dips into the lower ranks of political life.
What does she have to brag about really?
Photo credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/markhillary/
If you look around the Philippines what has changed? The semblance of modern life is there to remind you that the 21st century does exist on the archipelago. But glass buildings only serve to mask and shadow the very clear juxtaposition of squalor in the country.
Don’t compare it to Daly City, right? But then why do most Filipinos thank their lucky stars to be ABTP—anywhere but the Philippines. The average annual salary in the RP is still about $1,700. Even Thailand is at $3,950. Malaysia’s at $7,000. WHTTP? What happened to the Philippines?
Look around? The brownouts have returned. The traffic is relentless. And the oligarchs still rule with their private armies. Add to that the journalists still being killed with regularity, and the Marcoses poised to regain at least regional power and where’s the great improvement?
PGMA has preserved the status quo and life goes on, unfortunately. Hope and change? Not in the last administration. Maybe the next?
Internationally, the stature of the Philippines has gone nowhere. PGMA might have thought it was a good idea, but look back at her decision to back George W. Bush’s miserable, interminable Gulf War. How ridiculous was it that Bush actually went out to the world to say he was backed by the Philippines!
It got Philippines lifted to ally status equal to Israel. In retrospect it would have been better if PGMA had stood up and told Bush he was out of his mind. But that would have taken the vision of a giant. Instead, she positioned the Philippines as the sycophantic flea that roared.
So much for world image under PGMA.
In the end, you can tell a lot by a country by the numbers of people who want to leave it. And perhaps PGMA’s legacy is to instill this motto: “Anywhere but the Philippines.”
Look around? Pinucks in Canada
I see Filipinos all the time in the US. But with current restrictive immigration policies, the vast growth of Filipinos isn’t in America but in Canada. I saw it first hand in Vancouver, British Columbia last week. Everywhere I looked, there was a Pinoy. At the airport. In the stores. The hotels. The subways. The streets. Filipinos abound.
Vancouver already has an Asian flavor with large Chinese and South Asians populations. But the entire country has been more Filipino since 2007 when the Philippines became the largest source of temporary foreign workers. In 2008, the number has shot up to 45,006 temporary foreign workers a 650-percent increase. Add the number of permanent residents and the Philippines has become the No.1 Asian group in Canada, nearly twice the number of Chinese and Indians.
What do you call a Pinoy in Canada? A Pinuck.
The workers are mostly caregivers, but there’s also upwardly mobile pinoys (UMPs), like Cecilia Guerrero who fled the Marcos era Philippines in the 70s. From a humble chamber maid, she’s now director of sales and catering at River Rock Casino and Resort just outside of Vancouver. How have things changed? During my trip, I met a fellow I’ll call Andy. He is in his 50s, and was an electrician in the Philippines. But he saw no hope and came to Canada with his family and children.
He didn’t even know there had been an election in the RP.
Source: Inquirer.net
Emil Guillermo is an award-winning journalist, commentator, and author based in the US. Follow him: www.twitter.com/emilamok, updates at www.amok.com.
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