The Wutz Up in the Philippines!

By: Kathleen Yu

Manpower resources are one of the Philippines’ greatest exports. Presently, over eleven percent of the population are employed as Overseas Filipino Workers (OFWs) and Filipino communities are found in almost every industrialized nation in the world. The OFW diaspora regularly injects dollars into the economy in the form of remittances from Filipino professionals working abroad sending money home to their families. This has assisted the Philippine government immensely, and kept the local economy afloat.

There are over 8 million registered Filipinos working abroad with the United States alone employing over 3 million Filipino migrants. Despite the global recession, Filipino professionals working in the US remitted over $17.3 billion in the last year alone, an estimated 5.6% increase from the 2008 figures. Saudi Arabia employs over 900,000 OFWs and the numbers are growing.

Overseas Filipino Workers are appropriately termed “modern day heroes” because of the sacrifices they make in leaving their families to work abroad. Most of them are blue collar workers, employed in jobs like caregiving, nursing and housekeeping.

The Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA) is a government agency that monitors and assists OFWs working abroad. OFWs are required to register with the POEA, while in the process of applying for working visas and other permits to go abroad. The POEA is also tasked with registering and monitoring recruitment agencies in the Philippines to ensure that no OFWs are led into forced labor, and other forms of abuse.

According to corporate lawyer Amanda Carpo, legal counsel of Makati-based firm Kittelson and Carpo Consulting, “The number of overseas recruitment agencies setting up operations in the Philippines is growing at an exorbitant rate. This is primarily because OFWs are considered a global commodity. Higher salaries and superior living conditions have lured a large number of OFWs abroad, and more and more Filipinos are following in their footsteps. This bodes well for the Philippine economy, which can only stand to gain from an increase in OFW remittances.”

On the other hand, as the Philippines undergoes a change in government and the job market abroad gets continually more competitive the question arises as to whether or not Filipinos will continue to venture abroad, in search of greener pastures. With such a competitive overseas job market, OFWs may be returning home to the Philippines making for highly-skilled overseas trained employees. The Philippine government should be prepared to respond to these scenarios and to support the OFWs who have been and continue to be a positive force in the economy.

Manila Philippines - What do you think are the pros and cons of having an automated election? There are several issues and benefits regarding this automation of election. The question is, are you in favor of this automated election, are you satisfied in what you have paid in a billion pesos? Would you rather consider the short line for manual voting rather than than of long lines because it became a clustered precinct? As of May 11 We have partial results came from the PCOS machine and being announced by chairman melo of COMELEC, or would you choose the manual voting that the output might result in less than a week?

There are things that needs adjustments at first just like the PCOS machine, because things that are first tested are not guaranteed a 100% full accuracy sometimes it has bugs and other errors which are very usual to machines, but the thing is that the Smartmatic should put IT professionals or Technician who knows well of the PCOS machine and the Smartmatic should test the machine first before they distribute and if lack of time is the reason for this bugs in the PCOS machine, the thing that the Smartmatic should do is to hire more people in their company even for a month only just ti verify that the smartmatic is working great and reliable in counting of votes. The more people that works on the smartmatic the more productive or the more reliable the PCOS machine will be. The smartmatic should also foresee some of the risk that might happen when using the machine so that the technician will know what are the things that he needs to do to be able to fix it as soon as the election starts. Well In the manual voting there are several watchers and teachers that are need to be present just to be able to count the votes that sometimes none of them seem to do their task. The advantage of the PCOS machine is that it makes the counting easily, is makes less people involve in election counting, less effort and many more compared to manual voting that requires opposite of the automated election. A little advice is that before releasing of the machine be sure that it is working and complete in everything that is needed in the election and there should always be a person or technician or IT professionals who knows how to troubleshoot and Be sure to know what are the error and later on fix or enchance the PCOS machine for the next election.

WASHINGTON D.C. Hundreds came to remember, and to honor former President Corazon Aquino at the historic St. Matthews Cathedral.

Her portrait welcomed churchgoers.

Fil-Ams joined friends and family of Mrs. Aquino who attended the memorial mass. Three cousins of her husband, former Sen. Benigno “Ninoy” Aquino Jr., live in the area.

The mass was officiated by Msgr. Ronald Jameson and Filipino priest Jose Opalda.

It was the second time mass was being celebrated for a Philippine president in St. Matthews, the seat of the Catholic Archdiocese of Washington DC.

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In the mid-eighties when I entered the seminary to check if ever I really had the vocation to the missionary life, one of the reasons why I decided to join the Scalabrinian Congregation was due to my family situation. My father was then working as a mechanic in Saudi Arabia. I also had a brother in Kuwait and another brother who was a seafarer.

That time, there were also my aunties who were working as nurses in Canada who later on asked their families to join them as immigrants. Later did I realize that we will become a family of migrants.

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I’ve been hosting a talk show on ANC/TFC called Crossing Borders, which just concluded its first season last week. The concept of the show is empowering the Filipino, wherever in the world he finds himself. It’s a self-help show that tackles issues and concerns that Filipinos face when they are abroad – from immigration, employment, human trafficking, psychological matters, financial matters, and the list goes on.

The objective is to provide the viewers with reliable and up-to-date information from myself and from experts that we guest on the show. Through the show, Filipinos would be able to help themselves deal with their concerns or know where to find help. And of course, my favorites is the Q&A portion, where I get to answer questions on U.S. immigration that people send in via email, text, or post on our multiply site.

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An elderly Filipino couple was found dead inside their home in Rockford, Illinois, Wednesday night.

The Winnebago county coroner’s office said 77-year-old Reynato Cardino and his 74-year-old wife Leticia died of blunt force trauma, indicating that they were battered to death.

The couple was found dead inside their Pleasant View Avenue home in Rockford a few days after returning from their vacation in Zamboanga, Philippines.

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Nestor Figaroa had sold his tricycle’s sidecar to add to the money that they used to buy a return plane ticket for his wife who is still in Oman.

“Naghanap po kami ng pera. ‘Yong sidecar ko naibenta ko para lang maidagdag sa pambili ng plane ticket ng asawa ko dahil yun po ang sabi ng agency ng Oman,” Figaroa said.

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MANILA, Philippines—“Aliw!” What fun!

“The Eraserheads by the Philippine Philharmonic Orchestra! I really believe the Eraserheads should be National Artists,” said a gleeful and amused Jed Segovia.

The 24-year-old artist was in serious-chic suit, his first, bought only a week before to wear to this fashion show at the Cultural Center of the Philippines (CCP) that would marry high fashion and the arts.

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The misery of the remaining 68 Filipino bus drivers still stranded in Dubai could soon be over.

Labor Secretary Marianito Roque said he was able to talk with various government officials in the United Arab Emirates and several agreements have been reached to address the issue.

Roque was a guest at the migrant workers’ day at the Philippine Overseas Labor Office (POLO) in Dubai.

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The lone Filipino passenger of an Air France flight that crashed into the Atlantic Ocean has been identified.

The Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) said Arden Jugueta was a seafarer whose vessel docked in Rio de Janeiro. Jugueta was to take a connecting flight from Paris to Manila.

Jugueta was among the 228 listed passengers and crew of Air France flight 447 that left Rio de Janeiro en route for Paris, France on the evening of May 31 (Brasilia time).

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