De-forestation in the 21st Century: Export of warm Filipino bodies

Written on Monday, April 28th, 2008 at 2:51 pm | by benign0

As the dependence of the Philippine economy on foreign remittances becomes increasingly irreversible, it comes as a bit of an irony that in the last several months, three scandals rocked that elite subset of the Philippines’ raw labour exports — medical professionals.

As a number of massively-promoted anti-Gloria street rallies in recent months pathetically failed to make international headline news, it took the following snippets to keep the Philippines on the map:

  1. an over-reaction to an out-of-context quote from a popular TV soap,
  2. a YouTube video of surgeons making fun of their hapless patient (mlq3 provides a good cross-section of blog chatter on the subject here); and,
  3. a Philippine-based (where else?) healthcare scam that defrauded the U.S. Government of millions.

On Item # 3, today’s edition of the INQ7.net editorialised:

But the damage this unconscionable scam does to the reputation of our medical community—even if it were proven that Filipino medical personnel involved were merely accomplices, not masterminds, in an elaborate scheme—will be more lasting than a stray and frivolous comment about the quality of Philippine medical schools in “Desperate Housewives.”

What in the span of two to three decades has become the crowning glory of Pinoy achievement - exporting warm bodies to foreign lands - is now being undermined by the inherent ability of Filipinos to squander home-grown capital. The export of raw human capital is the 21st Century frontier of our imagination-challenged society, just as the export of raw timber was our pre-occupation and lifeblood over the previous century.

Raw export of elite Filipino workers already contributes to the continuous denuding of our society’s professional landscape. The real tragedy is that an emerging source of local employment and development — medical tourism — is being nipped in the bud. In Australia alone, many documentary features on disastrous Aussie medical tourist expeditions to the Philippines have been aired on TV and written about in news journals. A single conclusion unites these exposes: Cheap medical care in the Philippines is not worth the risk!.

If it took 100 years to obliterate 90% of the Philippine Islands’ forest cover, how much of the 21st Century will it take to reduce our society to a human cesspool, its workforce rendered impotent by decades of substandard education, absentee parenting, intellectual bankruptcy, and dubious ethical bearings?

Needless to say, we Filipinos have a long track record of perverting otherwise brilliant concepts. Ideas, traditions, and artefacts that have once been seen as key features of Pinoy society — the jeepney, People Power, democracy, etc. — are now no more than pathetic museum pieces to remind us of the immense wasteland our culture has become.

Having laid waste to our store of non-human resources, we are now ravenously spending the principal of our human resource rather than living off interest income.

Like our forests before this, there is no re-planting strategy in sight.

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About The Author: benign0 is the Webmaster of GetRealPhilippines.COM and has once been described as "one of the most enthusiastic hecklers of the politically-passionate" by a respected journalist.

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5 Responses to “De-forestation in the 21st Century: Export of warm Filipino bodies”

  1. Lester Cavestany on April 28th, 2008 7:19 pm

    Baka naman nataon lang. I hope it’s not a trend. We simply cannot afford to lose the economic benefits of OFW remittances. $14B a year, saan natin kukunin yon?

    At the end, our vision should still include a nation that can provide opportunities for its citizens. We’re still a long ways away from that. But with the right leadership, it can and it should happen.

  2. Nick on April 28th, 2008 7:35 pm

    And the rice crisis… I’m currently in The U.S., and that’s by far the biggest news coming out of The Philippines that is actually being covered by mainstream media..

  3. Nick on April 28th, 2008 7:43 pm

    I think in the end, it will be the massive buying power, and thus the political power of these same OFWs that will in itself end this trend.

    Human commodity will be the new gold in the next decades, that and energy. If we can cultivate our medical field, while diversifying into other aspects of our economy, say for example the outsourcing industry, then we can set ourselves up for a greater future.

    We need political pressure to make such decisions a reality. Our politicians are so enamored on themselves, that it is elections they are concerned about and not fiscal and infrastructure policy and the actual implementation of these policies.

    I think, there is a need at this moment to rely on the strength of our OFWs in the short term, as it boosts our economy in the short term.

    But we need to leverage this advantage now, and plan for the future, if the sacrifices of this major bloc of Philippine society is not to be wasted.

  4. benign0 on April 29th, 2008 7:41 am

    Nick, are we still waiting for this massive buying power?

    All the while I thought it was already there — to the tune of 10% of the Philippine economy.

    It seems this 10% has made its mark only on consumption and NOT domestic investment that yields sustainable economic output other than rent.

    I agree though that delivery of labour-intensive services from a local base (such as hosting of outsourced capability from overseas) fits neatly with our skills base and relative proficiency in English (our lead on which, by the way, is rapidly diminishing as well).

    But as I mentioned how far can we take this asset? I recall some blogger a while back write that call centres and BPOs are the lechon manok and shawarma businesses of the 00’s.

    Are we cultivating these businesses properly by:
    - building long-term trust with our clients
    - building strong and valuable brands
    - expanding their capital base through innovation and product development?

    Or are we just regarding them as short-term cash crops by:

    - marketing and competing primarily on price
    - saturating the market until it suffocates on its own price erosion

    Keep in mind that we can only compete on price for so long. Price erosion is the biggest enemy of commodity goods (the Philippine economy has always depended on commodities and not quite made the leap to high-added-value production).

    Given our poor track record for industry differentiation, in ten years, it is a safe bet that the call centre and BPOs will be another industrial rustbelt - the same fate that claimed our garments, furniture, and, yes, lechon manok facilities.

    I quoted Ambeth Ocampo in my book on her observation of how Romblon marble being used:

    What did the people in this sleepy town do with their marble? They made them into tombstones, mortar and pestle. As a tourist, I asked myself: How many “lapida” [tomb markers] and “dikdikan” [pestle] do I want? How many lapida and dikdikan do I need? Come to think of it, how many lapida and dikdikan do they sell in a year? Here is a region that has skilled manpower and an almost inexhaustible natural resource, but their products are unimaginative. If culture comes in to introduce new designs and new uses of Romblon marble, that would go a long way in developing the industry and the province.

    It’s hard to be hopeful when you still keep seeing the SAME things being done and approached in the SAME way.

  5. Pumpy on May 1st, 2008 8:09 pm

    More Filipinos have to leave because the government has failed to strengthen the economy. They have failed because they are unable to provide enough funding for public education, health care, etc., and that’s because large amounts of money are being lost to corruption.

    Anti-government rallies have nothing to do with the problem. The fact that COA has already been pointing at major anomalies in various government projects and that Japan and the IMF has responded to such shows that it is the government that is primarily at fault.

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