Arroyo's "Supermaid" strategy

I can hear Arroyo defender Bong Austero now saying: "at least may plano si pangulo GMA noh? GOSH!"

From the AP:

Able to leap tall mop buckets in a single bound, it's Supermaid!

(8/03/06 - MANILA, Philippines) - Looking for a maid who can not only cook and clean but save your kid from a fire? Try a supermaid.
Philippine President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo wants to create the "supermaid" using a new training program for Filipino domestic helpers.

"We will be sending `supermaids,"' Arroyo said during a round-table discussion on efforts to evacuate 30,000 Filipinos in Lebanon, most of them maids, and help them find new jobs.

Augusto Syjuco, head of the government's Technical Education and Skills Development Authority, said the "supermaids" program includes training in first aid, evacuations from high-rises in case of a fire and other skills to help maids get higher pay.

"They are not just maids. They are really very well-trained now," he said. "If there is someone injured among the family they work for ... how to get out of a fire in a high-rise building, all these are part of our upgrading program."

About 10 percent of 86 million Filipinos work abroad, sending home at least $10 billion each year.

So this is the kind of future she is leading the country towards. But I think we can do much better than that. instead of telling them to go work abroad na lang, we should be doing a better job of providing decent paying jobs HERE in our country.

pero ang hirap na kasi mag start ng business dito dahil sa taas ng buwis, kuryente at iba pang expenses. kaya maraming nale-layoff at maraming factories ang nagsaraduhan sa pinas.

Yung businesses na kumimita lang ngayon sa aking palagay ay yung pagbebenta ng cell phone cards at pirated dvds, LOL.

since most filipinos couldn't find a job here, sa ibang bansa na lang sila naghanap.

(at kahit na marami raw na job opening sa call centers, many OFWs continue to leave the country in droves. why is that? because many of them are not qualified (ie not fluent in english) to hold those kinds of low level jobs. yung mga usually na natatanggap lang na applicants ay yung mga magagaling na inglisera sa mga top universities like ateneo, la salle, UP etc.)

I think it is one of the biggest the weakness of this admin, IMO (aside from her illegitimacy, corruption and lack of credibility, of course). AND it should be a major campaign issue in 2007 against her allies.

arroyo's strategy is to let filipinos find work abroad. our strategy (and the opposition's) should be to help create jobs here instead, para hindi na umalis pa ng ibang bansa ang kababayan natin para lang kumita.

besides, if the main thrust of one's "economic strategy" is to make the philippines basically unlivable for middle class and poor pinoys (because of high cost of living) and make it hard for them to find work, so that many filipinos are forced to work abroad (and then calling them "new heroes" whenever they send their remittances back home)-- you better make damn sure you got their backs covered kapag inaabuso sila o nasa panganib ang buhay nila.

unfortunately, the arroyo admin has been proven to be incompetent in looking after the welfare of the OFWs.

the arroyo admin's slow and scandalous handling of our OFWs needs in lebanon and their evacuation is just the latest and most glaring example of that.

So, the administration's inability to deliver/create jobs here and their incompetence (and blatant misuse) of the OWWA money should be a big issue in 2007.

UPDATE: Even Emil Jurado of Manila standard today, a pro arroyo columnist, admits:

We have seen and heard from migrant workers in Lebanon that many of them do not want to be repatriated because they believe they are out of harm’s way and that they have employers who pay and treat them well. “What will we do in the Philippines without jobs,” they ask.

It may be good policy for government to evacuate all migrant workers from Lebanon. But how can this be done when most of them don’t want to leave and opt to stay rather than risk coming home jobless? This is government’s quandary.

The Filipino OFWs, caught between a rock and a hard place.

Nagalit rin siya kay Lebanon Ambassador Al Bichara for telling the truth and violating Arroyo's EO 464:

When Philippine Ambassador to Lebanon Al Francis Bichara testified before the Senate via teleconference during the Senate inquiry on the status of migrant workers in Lebanon and whether or not the Department of Foreign Affairs and the Overseas Workers Welfare Administration have funds for their evacuation, it directly violated Malacañang’s policy that requires executive officials to seek permission first from the Palace. In fact, I would say, it embarrassed not only both the DFA and OWWA, which had a press briefing on the Senate issue at the same time, but the President as well.

It was bad enough that Bichara violated protocol by complaining to the media about the lack of embassy funds for the repatriation of migrant workers instead of coursing his complaint to the DFA home office. Obviously, Bichara, who was once governor of Albay, forgot that he’s already a diplomat and an alter ego of the President and no longer a politician.

I repeat what I said earlier that with diplomats like Bichara in Middle Eastern countries afflicted by crises, Malacañang is inviting enemies it doesn’t need. He should be recalled.

Well, you're entitled to your opinion, mr. jurado.

Eto naman ang sabi ni Lebanon’s Consul in Manila Joseph F.K. Assad sa kanya:

"The best man for this job is Ambassador Bichara. He is half-Lebanese and half-Filipino, so you know his heart is there."

More here from Ernie Maceda:

Why should Al Francis Bichara, Philippine Ambassador to Beirut, Lebanon, be reprimanded for telling the truth? Asked by a TV reporter whether he had enough funds, he candidly said “no” and had not received any new funds from the home office (DFA).

As a former ambassador to Washington, I know that the regular funds allotted to an embassy are pared to the bone. My representation funds in Washington were only $2,000 a month while travel funds were only $1,000 a month. Common sense dictated that with 30,000 OFWs in war-torn Lebanon, extraordinary expenses for transportation, food and housing were going to be incurred. DFA and Malacañang should have sent additional funds posthaste during the first week of the conflict to Beirut.

Bichara should be commended, not castigated, for working under extremely difficult circumstances without funding support. The $150,000 funds for Beirut evacuation finally reached Beirut last Aug. 1. It should have been sent three weeks earlier. No wonder the evacuation to Syria took so long to start.

To be fair, DFA cannot be blamed here too. It has to wait for funds to be released by the Department of Budget and Management before supplemental funds can be sent to an embassy abroad, outside of its regular allotment. OWWA should have paid for the food and housing and the buses of the evacuees to go to Syria.

Anyway, Bichara is a rich man who does not need the job. Malacañang would be well advised not to push him to the wall. He is not going to hang on to his thankless job. He will probably resign after he completes his job.

This incident raised the question — are executive officers prohibited from speaking out about their problems? In a truly democratic system, transparency and freedom of speech is the rule. It is understandable that in the military establishment, junior officers should not make their complaints to media. Considerations of discipline and security justify that rule. But it is only under GMA that civilian officers are prohibited also from speaking out about their problems publicly.

Transparency. What is this word transparency...

UPDATE: Even Steven Den Beste heard about SuupaMeido (Date: 20060803.1135, walang permalink yung bawat blogpost niya eh)

Jon Mariano comments.

More from Isa of the Coven.

Okay, so I've accepted the fact that the problems of this country is not likely to be solved in my lifetime, and maybe not even Ben's lifetime, but stuff like this is ridiculous. It would be okay I guess if there is some obvious efforts to improve the way things are going in the Philippines so that while there will still be OFWs, their number would stabillize and not keep going up. Which means that there will be jobs created in the country so that many of our fellow Filipinos will no longer feel the need to work abroad just so to keep their family afloat...okay, okay...wishful thinking on my part. Instead, what we have are bickering politicians who cannot relinquish their positions to those who are more deserving and more capable of maybe giving this country the fixing it needs. Aba, baka nga naman mawalan sila ng kickbacks at income sources. It always makes me wonder what the heck they're going to with all the money they accumulate. They are just so insatiable.

Reading stuff like this makes me really sad that I live in this country. Oh, I'm sure there are others in worse situation that we are, and to be honest, I'm still very thankful for the life I lead. But looking at the faces of the returning OFWs from Lebanon, and listening to them in the interviews (about their homesickness and worse, about the abuse some of them have received from their employers), I feel bad that they have to suffer so much just to be able to send money to their families here, and even worse when I realized that many of them are willing to go through it all over and over again. And I think, shouldn't we be focusing more on ways to give them jobs here and keep them from leaving rather than worrying about charter change and building international airports around the country?

Word, Isa.