By Rolo B. Cena
The Gulf Files
Dumaguete Star Informer
21 August 2011
Riyadh, Saudi Arabia - With Ramadan closing with the celebration of the Eid holidays from 25 August to 02 September 2011, everybody is just as expectant as all Muslims in the world. Ramadan, the Islamic month dedicated for fasting, happens to be celebrated in the month of August, which the world celebrates as the anti-Terrorism month.
As enunciated by their faith, Ramadan month teaches the values of patience, spirituality, humility and submissiveness to God. Ramadan is the Islamic month of fasting where participating Muslims refrain from eating, drinking and intimacy with their partners during daylight hours.
To my view, irrespective of faith or religion, submissiveness to God is a continuous commitment where an individual is supposed to actively profess that he is born in the image and likeness of God, the God of peace and freedom. Additionally, fasting should not only happen during this period but although the years as well, and this includes fasting from waging indifferences, or more appropriately, war. I strongly believe that war is not an option.
Ten years ago, the entire world was shocked when Al-Qaeda, Jihadist group of Osama Bin Laden grounded the World Trade Center in New York. Instantly, it claimed lives. To date, it still claims lives as anger and depression still linger in the heart and minds of the victims and those who condemn war.
The notorious effect and consequence of this attack still manifests in the economy of the world’s superpower. Lately the credit rating of the USA declined from AAA to AA+ after seventy years of good standing. While this is America, the decline in the rating adversely affects other countries and kingdoms with whom the “land of milk and honey” deals with.
Unemployment rose in the US mainland; and it creates ripple effect to countries or kingdoms where its economy controls. In the Middle East, several nations or kingdoms forced to implement their own austerity measures to address the status quo. Consequently, unemployment soared.
The 9/11 attack and Al-Qaeda’s subsequent terrorism activities generate newer and bitter approaches to conservative Islamic disposition and faith; these foster factionalism and indifferences. As a result, these create uncontrollable political unrests in the Arab world, more peculiarly in the Middle East and its neighboring nations: Tunisia started the protests that paved the way for its president to flee to Saudi Arabia; the Freedom Square in Cairo paved the way for the re-birth of a new Egypt and thus placed Hosni Mubarak, its president behind bars; Libya’s version of civil defiance still heightens the alert level with Muamar Khadafi defying international laws and attacks; Sudan follows the same suit; Syria’s episode grows worse.
Al-Qaeda’s figure head has been liquidated in an attack in Pakistan. However, as United Nations say, it’s too early to claim victory. While this incident places the group in a weaker stance, Bin Laden’s successor is once again taking control and gaining grounds. The US government and the United Nations anti-Terrorism group are confident that the Muslim extremists group will soon be terminated following these indications.
Recently, riots and unrests were seen in the United Kingdom, another country believed to have a very strong and stable economy and political climate. In Spain, riots, which were triggered by economic depression, are staged.
Consequently, changes in economic and political reforms in these kingdoms and nations usher a new threat to the Filipino workers abroad. For instance, when Bahrain followed the same suit from Egypt, thousands of Filipinos were ferried home and thus landed jobless. Filipino workers in Egypt and Libya were displaced involuntarily. The 17,000 Filipinos in Syria this month were advised to leave the country, which means another story of unemployment.
Conversely, any political unrest, protest, or riot that may take place in countries where expatriates are, particularly Filipinos, will surely bring about personal economic unrest to an individual, regardless of breed or creed.
In the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, an abrupt and massive change in employment benefits for its constituents was immediately instituted. The move is aimed at curtailing future political unrests and violence that are similar to its neighboring nations and kingdoms. One major change is the implementation of its re-designed and re-enforced Saudization Law that can effectively bar non-compliant employers from renewing the Iqama of the expatriates, or from hiring expatriates if the required rate of complying with the Law is not met. Incidentally, most employers are not meeting the requirements of the Law, and thus, give millions of OFWs in Saudi Arabia a stern warning.
Arguably though, similar phenomenon will surely come into as the world fights against terrorism and depression. As the month of Ramadan suggests, submissiveness to God brings about newer and better lives. How I wish their world practice what they preach!
Showing posts with label OFWs. Show all posts
Showing posts with label OFWs. Show all posts
Thursday, August 18, 2011
Thursday, August 11, 2011
The Wives of the OFWs
By Rolo B. Cena
The Gulf Files
Dumaguete Star Informer
14 August 2011
Riyadh, Saudi Arabia – Undoubtedly, if they can only be nominated for life-time achievement awards, they can be winners by unanimous choice. Surely, no amount of major, major achievement can outbest their performance in life.
In search of the classic greener pasture, husbands cross the borders to share with colleagues the adversities in uncharted kingdoms: high seas of immeasurable depth, hectares of badlands and infinite sand dunes, and miles of jungles and undefined territories. Back home, high prices of commodities, soaring unemployment rates, unfavorable political climate and disturbed economy pushed them to the edge.
Let alone risks come to pass, lest, the tough should get going.
When husbands leave their homesteads, several values at the same time slip off the domicile: fatherhood, control, and affection. Presumably, the ordeal begins.
Unquestionably, wives take over the roles husbands vacated. While they cannot forgo their motherhood, by default they should take on fatherhood. Although it’s psychologically manageable, this vacuum grossly becomes a scare to most of them: authority over kids may not be as effective as the way fathers execute. In our culture, fatherhood dictates authority; more so, authority is always associated with masculinity – an orientation most women dispute or argue with. And to some extent, I agree!
Wives have to earnestly perform blue-collar jobs most of the time: cook, driver, janitor, plumber, electro-mechanic, messenger, tea boy, and guard. While these menial jobs husbands execute become irritating and taxing, the requirement to do takes precedence over ire. Quipped one wife close to me: “Superman has no room in this modern-day environment anymore; wives are!”
Wives have to dutifully execute white-collar jobs most of the time: tutor, counselor, entertainer, priest, and king. While these job roles are shared by husbands and wives, most of the time husbands maintain stronger dominance over these roles.
Although there are wives who are more domineering than husbands, this authority figure or control mechanism over family is more associated with the husbands. Literally and figuratively, fathers do have peculiar and innate quality that make them effective controller. Hercules takes superiority over Aphrodite, in this regard.
Over financial matters, wives are better controller than husbands, although to some extent wives can sometimes be imprudent. The obsessive-compulsive behavior of majority of the wives becomes disparaging as this point. While there are husbands who are themselves imprudent by nature, our culture associate this thing with women.
Quite sensibly, wives are emotionally battered. The temporary alienation from husbands is by itself the cause; it is deterrent to psychological composure that is required in achieving and maintaining self-esteem. This alienation obviously becomes a hindrance to emotional stability. It has become a psychological war wives have to seriously deal with in achieving familial and domestic objectives.
This is why, most marriages fail. Nope, this is not absolute; this is a general statement that should be qualified. Venus is more fragile and more prone to temptations; Mars is tougher than thou, though. But the fragility of Venus cannot be taken single-handedly as the reason why most Gardens withered; Eve leaves home to look for a new Adam. Conversely, husbands who are as tough as Hercules and as hot as Mars are also fragile and prone to temptations. This nature husbands cannot deny or preclude.
Seriously, what is more pressing is when evening falls, no Cupid can provide comforting hugs to usher emotional and psychological security. When nights turn cold, no Romeo can accord gentle caress and body contacts to make one sundown calmly relaxing. When the urge comes, no Adam can share with to release warmth and experience the gist of sensuality and sexuality the beautiful Garden of Eden reserves for them. Conversely, the nights are as maddening as when Cupid escapes form Psyche, or Romeo from Juliet, or Adam from Eve.
However, as one OFW noted, when husbands leave, wives become more substantial, more powerful, and more esteemed.
Yes, they become women of substance: Assumption of fatherhood propelled them to release the energy that’s within them in battling pro-actively the concerns ahead. The vacuum that they occupied accorded them the opportunity to work like “one of the guys” sans the masculinity apparent to these roles. Wives taking on the “suit of husbands” elaborate them with the alter-ego.
Yes, they become women of power: Alienation induces them to exude the power anytime of the day, working hard and double time to relieve husbands from these roles. The energy popping out of status quo exemplifies the conviction that by default wives have to do it with gusto. They are the sentinels and rulers equipped with the most sophisticated of arms and dignified with all the majestic powers.
Yes, they become women of esteem: Emptiness and alienation pushed them to maintain the same self-esteem they used to have. They are the beauty icons enthroned to a superlative degree; honoraries professing faithfully the values of life. They are Aphrodite dressed with the gentlest fabric of human kindness and wrapped with lacy values of life called motherhood.
When children top the class or win competitions, mothers are behind them; when husbands are promoted abroad, wives are behind them. When the government hails overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) as modern-day heroes, wives are with them.
After all, behind every man’s achievement is a woman. Let’s not talk about failure!
The Gulf Files
Dumaguete Star Informer
14 August 2011
Riyadh, Saudi Arabia – Undoubtedly, if they can only be nominated for life-time achievement awards, they can be winners by unanimous choice. Surely, no amount of major, major achievement can outbest their performance in life.
In search of the classic greener pasture, husbands cross the borders to share with colleagues the adversities in uncharted kingdoms: high seas of immeasurable depth, hectares of badlands and infinite sand dunes, and miles of jungles and undefined territories. Back home, high prices of commodities, soaring unemployment rates, unfavorable political climate and disturbed economy pushed them to the edge.
Let alone risks come to pass, lest, the tough should get going.
When husbands leave their homesteads, several values at the same time slip off the domicile: fatherhood, control, and affection. Presumably, the ordeal begins.
Unquestionably, wives take over the roles husbands vacated. While they cannot forgo their motherhood, by default they should take on fatherhood. Although it’s psychologically manageable, this vacuum grossly becomes a scare to most of them: authority over kids may not be as effective as the way fathers execute. In our culture, fatherhood dictates authority; more so, authority is always associated with masculinity – an orientation most women dispute or argue with. And to some extent, I agree!
Wives have to earnestly perform blue-collar jobs most of the time: cook, driver, janitor, plumber, electro-mechanic, messenger, tea boy, and guard. While these menial jobs husbands execute become irritating and taxing, the requirement to do takes precedence over ire. Quipped one wife close to me: “Superman has no room in this modern-day environment anymore; wives are!”
Wives have to dutifully execute white-collar jobs most of the time: tutor, counselor, entertainer, priest, and king. While these job roles are shared by husbands and wives, most of the time husbands maintain stronger dominance over these roles.
Although there are wives who are more domineering than husbands, this authority figure or control mechanism over family is more associated with the husbands. Literally and figuratively, fathers do have peculiar and innate quality that make them effective controller. Hercules takes superiority over Aphrodite, in this regard.
Over financial matters, wives are better controller than husbands, although to some extent wives can sometimes be imprudent. The obsessive-compulsive behavior of majority of the wives becomes disparaging as this point. While there are husbands who are themselves imprudent by nature, our culture associate this thing with women.
Quite sensibly, wives are emotionally battered. The temporary alienation from husbands is by itself the cause; it is deterrent to psychological composure that is required in achieving and maintaining self-esteem. This alienation obviously becomes a hindrance to emotional stability. It has become a psychological war wives have to seriously deal with in achieving familial and domestic objectives.
This is why, most marriages fail. Nope, this is not absolute; this is a general statement that should be qualified. Venus is more fragile and more prone to temptations; Mars is tougher than thou, though. But the fragility of Venus cannot be taken single-handedly as the reason why most Gardens withered; Eve leaves home to look for a new Adam. Conversely, husbands who are as tough as Hercules and as hot as Mars are also fragile and prone to temptations. This nature husbands cannot deny or preclude.
Seriously, what is more pressing is when evening falls, no Cupid can provide comforting hugs to usher emotional and psychological security. When nights turn cold, no Romeo can accord gentle caress and body contacts to make one sundown calmly relaxing. When the urge comes, no Adam can share with to release warmth and experience the gist of sensuality and sexuality the beautiful Garden of Eden reserves for them. Conversely, the nights are as maddening as when Cupid escapes form Psyche, or Romeo from Juliet, or Adam from Eve.
However, as one OFW noted, when husbands leave, wives become more substantial, more powerful, and more esteemed.
Yes, they become women of substance: Assumption of fatherhood propelled them to release the energy that’s within them in battling pro-actively the concerns ahead. The vacuum that they occupied accorded them the opportunity to work like “one of the guys” sans the masculinity apparent to these roles. Wives taking on the “suit of husbands” elaborate them with the alter-ego.
Yes, they become women of power: Alienation induces them to exude the power anytime of the day, working hard and double time to relieve husbands from these roles. The energy popping out of status quo exemplifies the conviction that by default wives have to do it with gusto. They are the sentinels and rulers equipped with the most sophisticated of arms and dignified with all the majestic powers.
Yes, they become women of esteem: Emptiness and alienation pushed them to maintain the same self-esteem they used to have. They are the beauty icons enthroned to a superlative degree; honoraries professing faithfully the values of life. They are Aphrodite dressed with the gentlest fabric of human kindness and wrapped with lacy values of life called motherhood.
When children top the class or win competitions, mothers are behind them; when husbands are promoted abroad, wives are behind them. When the government hails overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) as modern-day heroes, wives are with them.
After all, behind every man’s achievement is a woman. Let’s not talk about failure!
Thursday, November 18, 2010
Leveraging the OFWs
By Rolo B. Cena
The Gulf Files
Dumaguete Star Informer
21 November 2010
Riyadh, Saudi Arabia – In 18 November 2010, the US State Department was quoted as saying that there is “possibility that the Abu Sayyaf Group (ASG) is getting funding from Filipino workers abroad.” Published in one of the country’s top dailies, further it said “external sources can be the Middle East-based extremists.”
What a biased accusation from the country whose economy is propelled in part by OFWs’ authentic synergy of psyche and physique which Filipino talents are known for? What paranoia of sort from the world’s superpower whose reach has gone beyond limits and control overboard thus jeopardizing the sovereignty these affected nations have?
A concoction of wizardry must be brewing. I have seen this from espionage movies; the same plots the pentagonal structure brought into play in the killing fields of countries the “land of milk and honey” has once dominated.
Firstly, Filipino contract workers nowadays earn meager income compared to the eighties where they used to be the highest paid overseas workers. While they are still the “apple of the eyes” of their employers elsewhere in the world, OFWs bargaining power diminished because of the upsurge of cheap labor from its counterparts in Asia, Africa and South America. Specifically in the Arab Peninsula, OFWs are compared with talents from India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Morocco, Egypt and the surrounding neighbours of the oil-rich Middle-Eastern Kingdoms.
Secondly, the ailing Philippine economy does not promise enough latitude for OFW beneficiaries to spend less for more value; the Philippine economy, technically, does not support the OFW to save. Conversely, the high cost of living abroad does not allow OFWs to indulge in other activities, especially the expensive ones; it sucks their meager income.
It is such an irrational act to divest their meager income into an activity that endangers human lives and consequently downplays the world economy. Why would overseas workers finance the ASG when they can hardly finance the expenses for their respective families in the Philippines? Rationally, what do you think would urge them to play around with their earnings, if there are really earnings – strictly speaking?
Now, let’s detonate one landmine after the other!
One, linking OFWs to ASG is actually naming them as rebels. The plain vanilla interpretation of the statement suggests that the US government proposes to monitor the movements of the OFWs and it is completely disturbing. For one, the government classifies migrant workers as unsung heroes; they did not cross the borders to finance the rebels. Listing them as supporters to these wayward extremists is not fair at all.
Two, the statement can lead us to believe that the US government wants control over the bank accounts of the OFWs or virtually requiring all migrant workers to declare publicly their assets and liabilities only self-serving members of the houses and the cowards from the cabinets are required of. This is entirely inhumane and completely a violation of the Human Rights Law. What the heck is the US government doing?
Three, if the preceding reasons appear irrational – which are actually valid as far as migrant workers are concerned, then I would like to opine that linking OFW remittances with ASG is a prelude to something bigger at stake. When there is smoke, there is fire; when there is war, there is US support. And US supports are actually in the guise of – putting the record straight - the Visiting Forces Agreement, which is now on its way to another review.
Getting the VFA signed at the expense of the OFWs doesn’t sound fair at all; more so, leveraging the OFWs and their beneficiaries for this exercise is inhumane. Can’t the US government think of more compelling and convincing reasons or justifications to maintain their Military Forces in countries like the Philippines, and conceivably, maintain their high profile business? The US government has already withdrawn their forces as early as the nineties. What brings them back in the guise of the VFA?
Putting my two cents in once again, accusing them as supporters of ASG equates OFWs to notoriety only these extremists are known for and is therefore equating them further to be high profile rebels. Linking them to this terrorism is exasperatingly inconceivable and wholly unacceptable, matter which deserves apology. The US government is only adding insult to the present conditions of the OFWs, which does not help at all.
There is only one war Overseas Filipino Workers are in: War against poverty which the Philippine government cannot extinguish to date. Not even the consolidation of minds, if there are minds available at all, of senators and congressmen who are always aiming the spotlight for their self-serving interests. It is the same war that has been plaguing the country even when we stood mentors to our Asian neighbours in the early eighties in technology and agriculture; the same war that continuously drives these rebellion-accused overseas Filipino workers to conquer uncharted kingdoms for bread and butter.
Proudly, the remittances of these unsung heroes have kept the Philippine economy at float, figuratively and literally. Is this how the US government define terrorism – working overseas to earn green bucks to feed the hungry families of these OFWs?
Statistically, where the US military camps are based, these countries are at war; more so, their economies are jeopardized. Take it from the numbers!
The Gulf Files
Dumaguete Star Informer
21 November 2010
Riyadh, Saudi Arabia – In 18 November 2010, the US State Department was quoted as saying that there is “possibility that the Abu Sayyaf Group (ASG) is getting funding from Filipino workers abroad.” Published in one of the country’s top dailies, further it said “external sources can be the Middle East-based extremists.”
What a biased accusation from the country whose economy is propelled in part by OFWs’ authentic synergy of psyche and physique which Filipino talents are known for? What paranoia of sort from the world’s superpower whose reach has gone beyond limits and control overboard thus jeopardizing the sovereignty these affected nations have?
A concoction of wizardry must be brewing. I have seen this from espionage movies; the same plots the pentagonal structure brought into play in the killing fields of countries the “land of milk and honey” has once dominated.
Firstly, Filipino contract workers nowadays earn meager income compared to the eighties where they used to be the highest paid overseas workers. While they are still the “apple of the eyes” of their employers elsewhere in the world, OFWs bargaining power diminished because of the upsurge of cheap labor from its counterparts in Asia, Africa and South America. Specifically in the Arab Peninsula, OFWs are compared with talents from India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Morocco, Egypt and the surrounding neighbours of the oil-rich Middle-Eastern Kingdoms.
Secondly, the ailing Philippine economy does not promise enough latitude for OFW beneficiaries to spend less for more value; the Philippine economy, technically, does not support the OFW to save. Conversely, the high cost of living abroad does not allow OFWs to indulge in other activities, especially the expensive ones; it sucks their meager income.
It is such an irrational act to divest their meager income into an activity that endangers human lives and consequently downplays the world economy. Why would overseas workers finance the ASG when they can hardly finance the expenses for their respective families in the Philippines? Rationally, what do you think would urge them to play around with their earnings, if there are really earnings – strictly speaking?
Now, let’s detonate one landmine after the other!
One, linking OFWs to ASG is actually naming them as rebels. The plain vanilla interpretation of the statement suggests that the US government proposes to monitor the movements of the OFWs and it is completely disturbing. For one, the government classifies migrant workers as unsung heroes; they did not cross the borders to finance the rebels. Listing them as supporters to these wayward extremists is not fair at all.
Two, the statement can lead us to believe that the US government wants control over the bank accounts of the OFWs or virtually requiring all migrant workers to declare publicly their assets and liabilities only self-serving members of the houses and the cowards from the cabinets are required of. This is entirely inhumane and completely a violation of the Human Rights Law. What the heck is the US government doing?
Three, if the preceding reasons appear irrational – which are actually valid as far as migrant workers are concerned, then I would like to opine that linking OFW remittances with ASG is a prelude to something bigger at stake. When there is smoke, there is fire; when there is war, there is US support. And US supports are actually in the guise of – putting the record straight - the Visiting Forces Agreement, which is now on its way to another review.
Getting the VFA signed at the expense of the OFWs doesn’t sound fair at all; more so, leveraging the OFWs and their beneficiaries for this exercise is inhumane. Can’t the US government think of more compelling and convincing reasons or justifications to maintain their Military Forces in countries like the Philippines, and conceivably, maintain their high profile business? The US government has already withdrawn their forces as early as the nineties. What brings them back in the guise of the VFA?
Putting my two cents in once again, accusing them as supporters of ASG equates OFWs to notoriety only these extremists are known for and is therefore equating them further to be high profile rebels. Linking them to this terrorism is exasperatingly inconceivable and wholly unacceptable, matter which deserves apology. The US government is only adding insult to the present conditions of the OFWs, which does not help at all.
There is only one war Overseas Filipino Workers are in: War against poverty which the Philippine government cannot extinguish to date. Not even the consolidation of minds, if there are minds available at all, of senators and congressmen who are always aiming the spotlight for their self-serving interests. It is the same war that has been plaguing the country even when we stood mentors to our Asian neighbours in the early eighties in technology and agriculture; the same war that continuously drives these rebellion-accused overseas Filipino workers to conquer uncharted kingdoms for bread and butter.
Proudly, the remittances of these unsung heroes have kept the Philippine economy at float, figuratively and literally. Is this how the US government define terrorism – working overseas to earn green bucks to feed the hungry families of these OFWs?
Statistically, where the US military camps are based, these countries are at war; more so, their economies are jeopardized. Take it from the numbers!
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