The Economist - USA (2020-11-13)

The EconomistNovember 14th 2020 Asia 25

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Banyan Money but not a class

N

ine monthsafter Taal volcano

erupted, life in the Calabarzon re-

gion of the Philippines, south of the

capital, Manila, is slowly returning to

normal, despite the raging pandemic.

Cinders buried houses, destroyed papaya

plantations and sent tens of thousands

fleeing. Today, the roads have been

cleared and the power is back on. Evacu-

ees have returned to patch up homes.

Local distilleries producing lambanog, a

fierce spirit made from fermented palm

sap, have sputtered to life. Few locals,

though, are holding their breath for the

promised splurge of government assis-

tance. That leaves only one sure source of

income: remittances from relatives

working abroad.

The 2.2m Overseas Filipino Workers

(ofws, as they are typically known) are

feted nationally for their sacrifices.

Nearly half toil in Saudi Arabia or the

Gulf states as maids, drivers or hotel

staff. All hotel bands in China seem to

have a Filipina singer. Hong Kong has

more than 150,000 ofws and Singapore

120,000, most of them women working

as domestic helpers and nannies. Central

Hong Kong on a Sunday is like the Philip-

pines writ small: a pavement map of the

country’s many languages as Filipinas

gather with friends from their region.

A fifth of all ofws are from Cala-

barzon. One, Bernadette, is a nanny in

Hong Kong. Her home in Calaca, in the

shadow of the volcano, escaped the worst

of the ash fall. But many of her friends

have been sending what money they earn

(just over HK$5,000, or $645, a month) to

help rebuild homes and livelihoods

destroyed by the eruption.

In other respects, Bernadette’s story is

typical. The 40-year-old has worked in

Hong Kong for a decade, far from her

husband and son. She supports not only

them but an elderly father with big medi-

cal bills. She has put the son, now 17,

through boarding school. Her six siblings

call on her when they have a financial

emergency. Through all this, she has

bought a plot of land back home and built a

two-storey house. She and many other

ofws are immensely proud of what they

have accomplished. They are welcomed on

their annual Christmas trip home (can-

celled this year because of the pandemic)

as bayani, or heroes. Huge parties are

thrown for them. They nearly always pay.

ofws are only one part of a 10m-strong

Philippine diaspora. Without the Philip-

pines’ 378,000 seafarers, the global mer-

chant fleet would be sunk. Nurses, doctors

and oil and mining engineers the world

over make up an expatriate professional

class. In all, the diaspora sends home

$30bn a year, a tenth of gdp.

Politicians recognise the political and

economic clout of expatriates. In Calaca,

says Bernadette, they woo ofws with

promises of jobs when they return, schol-

arships for their children or health insur-

ance—“but they are just trying to get our

vote.” Presidential candidates or their

proxies come to Hong Kong for rallies.

Not only do ofws’ votes count, but loved

ones at home will listen to them.

On occasion, expats’ social-media

campaigns have drawn attention to

government corruption or incompe-

tence, such as after the deadly Typhoon

Haiyan in 2013. Some academics hope

that expatriates, when they return, can in

future help reshape the country’s poli-

tics, demanding better government and a

more responsive approach to the coun-

try’s inequalities in the place of graft and

the cult of the strongman. There are too

few signs of that happening. ofws do not

yet represent the kind of middle class

capable of urging change. While remit-

tances can enable upward mobility—

Bernadette’s son plans to study aeronau-

tical engineering—they can just as easily

be spent by husbands on booze, roast

pigs, gambling and lovers. Professionals,

meanwhile, are more likely to emigrate

permanently.

One professional returnee, Ronald

Mendoza, dean of the school of govern-

ment at Ateneo de Manila University,

posits another factor: ofws work largely

in authoritarian places, where the model

of the strongman is rarely questioned.

Most Filipinas in Hong Kong, for

example, were bemused by recent pro-

democracy protests and approve of their

suppression. As for President Rodrigo

Duterte, who embodies personal rule and

promotes vigilante justice, he remains

wildly popular among ofws. When, at

home, this columnist lamented that 18

journalists have been murdered while Mr

Duterte has been unremittingly hostile

to the press, his Filipina cleaner was

indignant, taking it as an insult to her

president. Banyan was impelled to mut-

ter an apology.

Filipinos working abroad are a source of cash, not reform

September, just as campaigning began,

stirring fears about turnout.

But “Mother Suu” remains hugely popu-

lar in Myanmar, especially among the eth-

nic-Bamar majority, but also with some

minorities. Win Lae Shwe Yee, an ethnic

Shan, voted for the nldin this election and

in 2015. She vehemently disagrees with

those who have come to see the nldas a

party of the Bamar, rather than all Burmese,

saying Ms Suu Kyi works “tirelessly” for the

whole country. It helps that the nldtends

to field candidates from the dominant eth-

nicity in each constituency. Moreover, it

controls government budgets, notes Salai

Jimmy Rezar Boi, secretary of the Chin Na-

tional League for Democracy (cnld), an

ethnically based party. He says that in Chin

state, the nld, having promised to build

schools, bridges and the like, took 35 out of

39 seats in the state parliament, up from 28

in 2015. The cnldwon just one.

The army may have given the nldan

unintentional fillip just days before the

election, when Min Aung Hlaing, the com-

mander-in-chief, impugned the integrity

of the election and accused the govern-

ment of making “unacceptable mistakes”,

prompting fears that the top brass might

repudiate the election result (it is anyway

guaranteed 25% of the seats in parliament,

enough to block constitutional reform).

The general, perhaps realising his mistake,

later said he would accept the outcome. But

Moe Thuzar of the iseas-Yusof Ishak Insti-

tute, a think-tank in Singapore, suspects

that his intervention helped to turn out the

vote. On November 11th the usdpdemand-

ed that the election commission “hold a

new election again, co-operating with the

military”. That will only strengthen Mother

Suu’s appeal. 7