Filipino News (Focus Pilipinas Edition) 2018

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10 OPINION ISSUE 115 | www.filipinonews.nz : pinoynzlfie.nz | email: filipinonews@xtra.co.nz | GIVE US A CALL : 027 495 8477 FOCUS PILIPINAS A new Philippine future beside the exodus? Continued from page 09 THE BAD TIMES: The horrendous murder of Joanna Demafelis; a domestic worker in Kuwait, angered President Rodrigo Duterte. (A distraught supporter displays her photo at her hometown in the Philippines) THE GOOD TIMES: Well settled Pinoys in Middle Earth - checking out the Weta Workshop in Wellington. nal/civil cases affecting Filipinos in various host lands. So along with rising migration and remittances is a perceived growing number of problems facing Filipinos abroad and the corresponding family-level social costs. However, there is a change in the plot: since the 2008 global economic crisis the Philippine economy is now one of the top economic performers in the world. Sustained gross domestic product growth, with an annual average of some 6 percent over these past ten years, is slowly buoying the Philippine economy. Coinciding with that is what some demographers perceive to be a demographic transition, where old and young dependants are lesser and the working force is bulging in numbers. That situation gives the Philippines a chance — a 30-year window, says some demographic projections — to drum up many savings and investments and have these parked at home. Overseas migration and remittances have been contributing their share to this ongoing demographic transition, currently through buoying local consumption. Yet one wonders why the stories are still the same sordid ones? The recent episode the Philippines faced was a diplomatic standoff with Kuwait, with the former demanding certain protections and employment regulations for Filipina domestic workers. This four-month saga started off with the discovered murder — body chopped into pieces and placed in a refrigerator for a year — of Joanna Demafelis, angering the tough President Rodrigo Duterte. After a deployment ban and Kuwait's own issues with Philippine diplomatic authorities, a memorandum of agreement on hiring domestic workers was signed just last month and diplomatic relations have been restored. Implementation by Kuwaiti authorities is another matter. For decades now, Filipinos abroad are still seen as those women who have found dates online and migrated for economic security or of women as 'lowly' domestic workers or as abused spouses even after they got permanent residency and of men who are trafficked into occupations different from what was initially in their work contracts. Filipinos have also been seen as bearers of the Christian faith, the workers with a more caring attitude, the workforce who can endure tough work conditions just to earn more and please employers, as the behaved foreigners in certain host country societies. Yet what is baffling is that the storylines of the Filipino migration saga are still perceived to be the same even in the age of social media. Filipinos abroad being lured by Philippine property companies is so 2000s. The sending of boxes with souvenir items (called balikbayan boxes - [balikbayan is 'returning home' in Filipino]) is already a generation old. Some Filipinos abroad continue to display pity towards their compatriots who are in less-skilled occupations in certain host countries, with pity masquerading as empathy. Filipinos' overseas migration has already brought about socio-cultural, economic and institutional changes in Philippine society, sociologist and historian Filomeno Aguilar, Jr. writes in his anthology The Migration Revolution (2014). Class structures have been reconfigured. That is the current scene of the Filipino migration phenomenon. Given the current era of a Philippine economy that's in a demographic transition which runs side-byside with overseas migration, what can be the new Philippine future beside the exodus? Can new stories about Filipinos abroad be told instead of sticking to the usual tales? Will Filipino food, for example, be mainstreamed in host societies and capture the imagination of nostalgic and curious foreign taste buds? Will there be more of a new breed of Filipino bridging transnational Filipino families, what kinds of family rearing tales have we not heard from those who endured parental separation and found success? In some Filipino rural communities, kinship and migrant entrepreneurs braving the riskier agricultural sector back home, while Filipino banks are averse to handing out credit to that sector? With social media easily community embeddedness mitigate the risks of migration's family-level social costs. With Japan having a long history of Filipinas going there as entertainers in night clubs and that migration pathway having been stopped over a decade ago, do the Japanese of today look at Filipinos differently? How many more Filipinos will become elected leaders in countries that realised those first elected migrant leaders, like the United States, New Zealand, Korea or Canada? Have you heard of a full-blooded Australian being deeply affected by the ongoing Philippine war on drugs and helping resolve a Filipino relative's drug-related woes? Or what about some Filipinas, already permanent residents and naturalised citizens in their destination country, dating compatriot seafarers docking in some ports? There are a myriad of good and bad tales about the overseas Filipino. People aspire to more pleasant stories, especially since Filipinos are known for extending their personal boundaries and for fits of empathy. Filipinos also aspire to less of the tear-jerking stories — from abused domestic workers to Filipino permanent residents who are duping compatriots on temporary work visas. With Filipinos abroad now an influential force for their motherland and them being exposed to better systems abroad, how can gruesome migration tales be changed for the better? The homeland and its institutions, especially the Philippine government, have their work cut out to fulfil the ambitions of comfortable living for Filipinos. But so do Filipinos abroad: they can chart newer tales and tumble down aging stereotypes of themselves. That will be through the love they usually show to their families, through better remittance management, through improved and sustained relations with locals in host countries and through a renewed sense of Filipino citizenship even while they're away. Jeremaiah Opiniano is a doctoral student (geography) at The University of Adelaide in Australia.
NEGOSYO ISSUE 115 | www.filipinonews.nz | filipinonews@xtra.co.nz | www.pinoynzlife.nz | FB : Filipino Migrant News 11 FOCUS PILIPINAS MANILA - Growing mobile and digital adoption rates in the Philippines make the country an ideal market for Kiwi tech businesses to dive in on, says New Zealand entrepreneur Rees Vinsen. Rees Vinsen is the founder of Adduco Media, a social marketing company that fosters online communities, manages social celebrities and builds brands across New Zealand, Australia, parts of Asia and the United States. Adduco Media has evolved into a predictive marketing platform that helps brands design and distribute messages based on audience personalities and behaviours. Vinsen, who divides his time between Nelson and Auckland, was one of five New Zealand tech entrepreneurs who spent a week in Manila, Philippines, as part of the ASEAN Young Business Leaders Initiative. He spoke to Rebecca Inoue-Palmer while in Manila and shared his observations about the Philippine tech sector, barriers to entry into the market and the country’s celebrity culture trends. Why were you interested in learning more about the Philippines? I was initially interested because of previous business dealings with another venture of mine, so I looked to explore other synergies and any other relationships that may be up here. Looking into it now, and being on the ground here, I see that there are many other companies, and more so, emerging tech companies, that have heavy applicability to what we are doing, so perhaps there are some future relationships there. What do you think would be some of the advantages of doing business in the Philippines? Working with the people. I’ve been pleasantly The next business hot spot Rees Vinsen is a Kiwi tech entreprenuer looking at doing business in the Philippines. surprised at the hospitality of the Filipino people; very nice, very welcoming and very helpful. They are more than happy to impart a lot of valuable information. We’re seeing in a lot of our meetings that they are running twice as long as anticipated, purely because they have a lot of value to give us and things to talk about. The second advantage I see, and it’s frequently described, is that the Philippines is in this demographic sweet-spot for the next, some say, up to 20 years. I think that translates directly into a business hotspot. In considering mobile and digital adoption rates here, I think that presents very big opportunities and big markets for businesses, entrepreneurs and startups to dive in on. What are some challenges you’ve observed? The primary challenge that comes to mind is the regulations and processes around doing business in the Philippines – the capital you have to have and the people you have to have f r o m day one is a huge barrier. I haven’t seen it in many Western countries. Relating that to New Zealand – in New Zealand you can incorporate a company and the next day you can trade. Whereas here [in the Philippines] you can be waiting for up to, on average, five months. You need to have five directors in that company and a fair amount of cash upfront just to even get the idea signed-off, to become legal. That is a huge barrier to any startup and to any foreign business that wants to see on-the-ground operations here. It’s a big barrier. You work with influencers in New Zealand. Do you have any observations about the celebrity culture in the Philippines? Celebrity culture here has very much the same trends we find in New Zealand, Australia and America; that many celebrities of A, B and C grades are being heavily monetised so they are looking personally at how to monetise their own presences. But then we are seeing big companies, we’re seeing telcos here, that are working with celebrities to monetise them through games, through bundle packages and through everything else. We’re seeing hot little start-ups as well. We talked to one the other day that manages celebrities’ interactions, so fans can purchase interactions with that celebrity. So - a very, very big culture here and the approach here is very much more one-onone. It’s a lot more personal than we see in New Zealand or the States, so that’s been quite interesting. – Asia Media Centre
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Filipino News (Focus Pilipinas Edition) 2018

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