The Pinoy Dispora

I don’t just like to write about what I see in certain places and then drop the country as I move on to the next. There are some subjects that deserve revisiting, and one that sort of jumps out at you in Hong Kong is the Philippines. Why the Philippines? You’ll notice it if you spend a little bit of time here. You’ll not only run into a lot of Filipinos but you’ll find many money wire stores that advertise sending remittances back to the Philippines. Some have Philippine flags on the front of the store.  If I had to hazard a guess, I would say that Filipinos constitute the largest group of foreign workers in Hong Kong.

Why? Not hard to figure out. The Philippines is relatively close, English is widely spoken in Hong Kong and almost universal in the Philippines, you can visit Hong Kong without a visa, where as most places require an application process. While I was in the Philippines, the most popular Filipino movie was Apat Dapat, Dapat Apat whose plot involved several female friends who go to Hong Kong to work as domestic servants. (When I was in the Philippines I was watching a TV show when some ads for foreign work opportunities flashed across the screen. I was taken aback at one which was for Hong Kong domestic help, and the position required a college degree. Kind of reflects poorly on job opportunities in the Philippines when they can demand a college degree to get a job as a maid.) As I write this, I’m in a pub eating lunch and the entire wait staff here is Filipino.

Filipinos have become the modern day versions of Jews and Chinese. In every European and Middle Eastern country you used find a population of Jews who filled an economic niche. Likewise, Chinese and Chinatowns can be found all over Asia which they often owned many businesses and were brought in originally as laborers. The same was also true of Indians during the British Empire who went to work in Guyana, Fiji, or Africa. Filipinos are filling that role today. Not only can you find Filipinos in Hong Kong, but also in Saudi Arabia, and throughout Asia. If I were a betting man, based on what I saw in the Philippines, I would bet that you see Filipinos follow the same course in these countries over the next several decades. They come in as laborers and end up owning businesses and having a higher standard of living than the local population. And, like the Jews and Chinese before them, they will probably end up getting the short end of the stick by locals if they become too successful.

Filipino Hong Kong laborers aren’t the only thing that was the impetus for me writing this. I’ve noticed in the last few weeks that there has been an explosion in the number of Filipino bloggers and websites. As a percentage of the population, they seem far more represented online than you would expect. While I wasn’t something I had considered, in hindsight it makes perfect sense. Working online is basically the same thing as working overseas, without the overseas part. You can have an international audience, earn US Dollars, take advantage of technical training, and do it all under the radar of local officials and not have to leave your family. Based on the small sample of nerds I saw in the internet cafes and game rooms in the Philippines, they have a core of an internet culture on a par or better than other countries in the region.

The Philippines has been slower than most of SE Asia in developing, but I think it probably holds more potential then other countries in the region, in the long run. People however, have been saying that since Marcos fell. If they can overcome their political problems and corruption, I think they might be the next Asian tiger.