Racism and retrenchment for Filipinos By Cher S Jimenez
HONG KONG - A scathing editorial written by a Chinese columnist that referred
to the Philippines as a "nation of servants", last month sent thousands of
protesting Filipinos onto the streets of Hong Kong and threatened to spiral
into a full blown diplomatic spat between Manila and the former British colony
and current autonomous region governed by China.
The inflammatory column was published in late March by HK Magazine and referred
to the Philippines' overlapping territorial claims with China to the nearby
Spratly Islands. Written by former British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC)
correspondent Chip Tsao and entitled "The War At Home", the writer advised Hong
Kong's
estimated 130,000 Filipino maids and other workers not to "flex your muscles at
your master, from whom you earn most of your bread and butter".
The commentary piece was perceived as being laced with racist overtones and in
an unprecedented show of collective force on April 5 drove thousands of
Filipinos into the streets, some holding placards saying "Treat us fairly and
with dignity" and "Foreign domestic helpers contribute to Hong Kong's economy".
Over 150 Filipino organizations and prominent individuals signed a statement
underscoring their disgust with Tsao's article.
Over a million Filipinos voted on social networking website Facebook for Tsao
to make a public apology. The fervor represented one of the rare occasions that
officials from the Philippine consulate in Hong Kong have seen eye-to-eye with
migrant organizations. The groups have called for better monitoring and
conditions for the overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) and often criticize the
government's perceived blind eye policy for migrant workers.
One Filipino legislator in Manila publicly challenged the Hong Kong reporter to
a boxing match over the slight, while the Philippine government slapped a
travel ban against the writer. Many Filipinos claim that domestic workers have
long been the target of official racial prejudice, witnessed in the Hong Kong
government's decision in 2003 to slash the minimum wage for maids and its
imposition of a levy on maid employers that was lifted only last year.
The Hong Kong Labor Department also imposes a two-week rule, where foreign
maids terminated from their positions have only 14 days to find another job or
must leave the territory. This policy, critics note, is not applied for foreign
workers in other industries. Others perceive a racial bias in the arrest this
year of 18 alleged Filipino drug traffickers as they claim the busts could lead
to stricter screening of Filipino workers and travelers to Hong Kong. There are
no firm official statistics, but thousands of Filipino domestic workers are
believed to have recently lost their jobs amid Hong Kong's tanking economy.
The Hong Kong government dispatched its security minister on April 1 to assure
Philippine officials in Hong Kong that Tsao's deemed "insensitive" views did
not represent those of the wider Chinese people. Asia City, the magazine's Hong
Kong publisher, issued a public apology in late March for the "offense" caused
by the article. Tsao himself tried to ally tensions by apologizing to a meeting
of over 100 Filipino community leaders.
Tsao's satirical treatment of Filipino maids, the largest group of foreign
domestic helpers in the city who famously overtake parts of downtown during
their days off the job, was not the first to run in Hong Kong media. The
Standard, Hong Kong's leading English language tabloid, carried a story on
February 25 indicating that many Filipinos carry a "super bug" that causes skin
infections and has the potential to develop into a life-threatening disease.
The Center for Health Protection (CHP), a government agency that the story
cited as the source of its information, later denied that majority of those
afflicted with the disease were Filipinos. In a letter to the Asian Human
Rights Commission, a non-governmental organization based in Hong Kong, the CHP
said that the results of its 2008 study into the drug-resistant bacteria showed
that 59% of those afflicted were actually ethnic Chinese.
Maligned minority
The Hong Kong government's quick diplomatic response likely had one eye towards
international opinion. In 2008, the Hong Kong government passed an anti-racial
discrimination ordinance, in compliance with the United Nations' (UN)
International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial
Discrimination. The signing, which took 11 years to accomplish, will be
highlighted as part of China's human rights record report to the UN later this
year.
Those credentials, some rights groups contend, are now in doubt. Three Filipino
migrant organizations here have filed racial discrimination complaints against
Tsao and his publisher with the Equal Opportunities Commission, a government
agency charged with implementing the anti-discrimination ordinance. They have
also asked the Hong Kong Press Council to sanction the columnist and his
publisher for violating basic journalism ethics. Both bodies are now reviewing
the complaints.
Migrant rights advocacy organizations say OFWs have become easy and ready
targets for racial discrimination as the global economy melts down, and not
just in Hong Kong. Dolores Balladares, president of the United Filipinos in
Hong Kong, said that the Philippine government's aggressive labor export policy
has made Filipinos all over the world vulnerable to class discrimination.
More than 1 million skilled and unskilled workers have since 2006 left the
Philippines for overseas economic opportunities and their foreign currency
remittances have helped to keep the country's local economy afloat. There are
currently over nine million OFWs scattered across more than 200 global
countries.
Rorie Fajardo, project coordinator of the Philippine Human Rights Reporting
Project, a Manila-based media institution, argues that because the majority of
OFWs are low cost competitors for lower end jobs, they are now being exposed to
more racial prejudice as the global economic downturn pushes up unemployment
rates and financial desperation across the globe.
Big Western media companies have shown an uncharacteristic blind spot in their
sometimes prejudiced portrayal of Filipinos, perpetuating stereotypes that feed
into the growing racism. In October 2008, the BBC sent an apology letter to the
Philippine ambassador in London over a comedy skit it aired showing a Filipina
domestic helper gyrating in front of her British employer.
The episode, shown twice on the comedy program Harry and Paul last
September, prompted groups from the 200,000-strong Filipino community in the
United Kingdom to protest in front of the BBC's offices and also launch an
online petition to protest against the popular program.
In 2007 the popular Desperate Housewives series in the United States was
bombarded with protests from Filipino Americans and OFWs over a script that
poked at Philippine medical schools. In that episode, one of the protagonists
said, "OK, before we go any further, can I check these diplomas? Just to make
sure they aren't, like, from some medical school in the Philippines?"
Milabel Cristobal, a Filipino and director of Amnesty International in Hong
Kong, said that some of the discrimination experienced by OFWs has been
influenced by the media, which she contends is also an "interest group" in the
battle for perceptions. While Tsao may have apologized for his perceived
racists sentiments, Filipinos in Hong Kong fear that racism in the media could
spill over to their workplaces in belt-tightening times.
"These [discrimination cases] must serve as wake-up call for the Philippine
government to review its policy on labor migration," said Fajardo. "Lack of
proper training of OFWs, defective recruitment-hiring systems, lack of
efficient monitoring and support systems in countries where we have OFWs - and
weak protection and welfare policies - would further subject our workers to
abuse and discrimination." So, too, it seems, will a deepening regional
economic crisis.
Cher S Jimenez is a Filipino journalist based in Hong Kong. She wrote for
the Business Mirror in Manila, Gulf News Manila Bureau, The Associated Press
and GMA7 online. She was a Yuchengco media fellow at the University of San
Francisco where she conducted research on undocumented Filipino migrants in
2007.
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