2.1. A History of Filipino Labor Migration
It is an undeniable fact that today, the Philippines cradles a huge number of labor
migrants for several countries across the world. Dominating sectors like domestic work,
seafaring, and nursing that has become a way of like for many Filipino families for so
many years. (Santos, 2014)
Below is a statistical table from the Philippine Statistics Authority which was
released on June 4, 2020. During this period, the estimated number of Overseas Filipino
Workers fell at 2.2 million. The proportion of female OFWs being fairly elevated from the
number of male OFW.
Selected Characteristics
2019
Number of overseas Filipino workers
(in thousands)
2,202
Type
100.00
Overseas contract workers
96.8
Other overseas Filipino workers
3.2
Sex
100.00
Male
44.0
Female
56.00
TABLE 1. Age and Sex of Overseas Filipino Workers: 2019
As taken from the 2014 report of Rappler, it follows how the history of Philippine
labor migration progressed through time, from the Galleon Trade which started it all,
bearing the country’s pioneer migrants, Filipino seafarers, up until the present setting
where there is a strong economic reliance to the consistent OFW remittances, one can
easily perceive how domestic work, as often underappreciated as it is, paved the way for
women to the international working arena.
According to (Asis, 2006), a “culture of migration” has arisen in the last 30 years,
with millions of Filipinos willing to work overseas, ignoring the threats and vulnerabilities
they are likely to face. What ‘International migration’ meant for Filipinos for most of the
20th century was moving to the United States and its Pacific territories and as
documented, it was on December 20, 1906, the first batch of Filipino workers landed in
Hawaii’s U.S. territory to work on sugarcane and pineapple plantations.
In the 1930s, under the setting of The Great Depression and World War II, there
was an economic boom that has slowed down migration from Europe, along with this is
the start of a new pattern of immigration. After, the Philippines signed a bilateral
agreement with Nigeria in 1962. They recruit Filipino engineers and doctors to work in
Nigeria and teachers were also recruited later on.
Not long after, in 1968, Filipino men were recruited by the US Navy to “see the
world.” Filipinos who are serving at U.S. military bases in Southeast Asia and areas of
the Pacific and are given the possibility of remaining in the U.S. until their retirement from
service. During 1970s, the Gulf, oil-rich countries are funneling their petro-dollars to
development programs. The Gulf countries, short of jobs, are looking to neighboring Arab
countries and Asia, including the Philippines, to employ guest workers.
Then the 1990, that had a pointed a high demand for skilled workers. There is a
great need for nurses, health care and IT staff, and the migration of trained and highly
qualified workers is growing. In the year 1992, driven by the need for teachers, nurses,
domestic workers and entertainers, female migration rose rapidly. It was also in this year
where the information on the gender composition of migrants became available.
In 2000, the world saw the rise on number of domestic helpers. According to UN
Women, between 1979 and 2009, more than 30 million Filipinos left the Philippines as
labor migrants, most of whom were women working as migrant domestic worker (MDWs).
Moving forward to this date, the number of women employed as domestic workers is still
going upwards. (Santos, 2014)
As conferred by (Cruz, 2012), for the reason that indigenous women belonging to
the lower class shouldered responsibilities that required them to move away from home
for employment, this flouted the norms of colonial gender and kinship and as many were
not fortunate enough to participate in church-sanctioned weddings, a large chunk of these
women began venturing Manila for economic and sexual labor. In the Philippines, this
displacement, motivated by economic marginalization, marked the beginning of female
migration.
Continuing, along with the onset of American colonization, new opportunities for
Filipino women pulled in with it; Public education, housing, and technical sectors to
mention. However, these campaigns have primarily benefited elite women, and women
from lower economic classes have often been relegated to informal and household jobs.
Leaping 19 years later, after the Philippines was finally free from the grip of colonial
rule, upsurge in the service sector under the Marcos administration caused a big rise in
workers pursuing overseas contract employment without an increase in sales output
production (International Organization for Migration, 2013). Furthermore, Filipino migrate
to other countries as an overseas contract worker (OCW). the increased demand for
female low-skilled domestic workers to fill in for women who began working in the new
industries came with the rise in industry in East Asia. The OCW at that time was
introduced as an interim strategy to meet the problem of the Philippines: increased
unemployment rate and to pay the external debt of the Philippines. Until the next
generations, OCW still exists to be an interim strategy. They are now known as new
heroes of the Philippines as they provide solutions to economic problems (Rigg, 2016).
In the year 2012, 2.25 million Filipino migrant laborers work abroad, of which
54.5% are women (Philippine Commission for Women, 2012). Similarly, a substantial
number of unprofessional Filipinos who are not trained in technical fields are still in pursuit
of work abroad. Nursing was the second highest workplace category for new hires in 2014
after domestic jobs, also based on the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration
survey.
Many female migrants are active in housework and care-taking practices. Their
remittances, totaling US$ 27.3 billion (Migration Policy Institute, 2013), account for almost
10% of the GNP of the Philippines, making it the second largest labor exporting country
in the world (Browne and Braun, 2008). The choice of Filipina women to serve overseas
in domestic care affects their conceptions of femininity and their roles as caregivers for
their families (Barber, 2000). Since then, the number of domestic workers deployed per
year has been about ten times that of nurses.
Additionally, from an article released by POEA, it stated that the cause of
continuously increasing rate of the participation of Filipinas in global migration is claim to
the following situations: (1) the official policy of the immigration of the government is to
convince Filipina to work abroad with the help of recruitment agencies; (2) gender
stereotyping to women in jobs like domestic worker and entertainment; (3) escalation of
poor families in rural and urban places cause of structural adjustment program that oblige
women to be engaged in labor force; (4) the increasing single-parent families supported
by mothers; (5) lack of opportunities in rural areas to have a stable livelihood (6)
increasing rate of families that depend on women (7) multiplication of in demand works
from rich countries that offer domestic workers and nurse (8) economic boom in other
