MIGRANTS WATCH

‘Keng Iraq’* 
1 out of 4 OFWs in Iraq are women

Filipino women too take the risks in Iraq – even dying itself. “Pag namatay ka dun may pera na matatanggap ang pamilya ko.  Kung dito ako mamatay baka wala ako kahit pambili lang ng kabaong” (If I die in Iraq, my family would receive some money. If I die here, I probably wouldn’t even have money for a coffin), one woman waiting to be sent to Iraq said. 

BY DABET CASTAñEDA
Bulatlat

Phoebe Baga and Corazon Tiglao (left) wait for the lifting of the ban on the deployment of OFWs in Iraq, like so many other women (right) fighting off fatigue and boredom while in queue at the recruitment agency. 

Photo by Dabet Castañeda

Around 700 middle-aged Filipino women were milling around the entrance of the Anglo-European Services, Inc., a recruitment agency located in the middle of the Makati business district, when Bulatlat visited it on July 28.  Each one was waiting and hoping that the person serving as barker would finally call her name for an interview or give her departure schedule.

“Mag-a-abroad kami” (We’re going abroad), each of them muttered when this writer asked what they were doing outside the recruitment agency.

“Nokarin ikayo munta?” (Where are you going?), I asked almost everyone in the crowd.“Keng Iraq” (To Iraq) was their common answer. 

Looking around, I realized almost half of the applicants were women, more than 40-years-old, applying for whatever job they could get in war-torn Iraq. This, despite the Angelo dela Cruz kidnapping episode which has barely died down.

Interviewed by Bulatlat, Gilbert Arcilla, general manager of the Anglo-European Services, Inc., confirmed that one-fourth of the labor force in Iraq is made up of women. More than 1,000 Filipino women have in fact already been sent to Camp Anaconda, north of Baghdad in Iraq to serve as janitresses and laundrywomen for the U.S. military stationed there. 

“The ratio is 1:3,” Arcilla said. About 300 more will be hired and sent to Iraq as soon as the ban on overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) is lifted by the Macapagal-Arroyo administration, he added.

Peasant’s wife

Looking pale and tired, Phoebe Baga, 42, seemed to badly need some rest that afternoon, which was very humid. She tried to fight her sleepiness by alternately standing and sitting, waiting to be called. 

Phoebe had been waiting in line for the last three days and had not come home since.  She left her six children to the care of her husband, Danilo, a farmer, in her hometown Lubao, province of Pampanga. Pampanga is the province of erstwhile Filipino hostage Angelo de la Cruz – and tens of thousands of other OFWs.

“Hindi sapat ang pagsasaka ng asawa ko para mabuhay at makapag-aral ang mga anak namin” (My husband’s earnings as a farmer are not enough to send our children to school), she said.  Her first child is graduating from college while the second is a college freshman. The other three are in high school and the youngest in the second grade. 

Phoebe’s husband, who farms a hectare of land in Lubao, tries to make ends meet with his earnings from farming but his efforts, though well appreciated, were simply not enough to meet their family’s needs.  

Phoebe filed her application for a job in Iraq last March but was only interviewed by her prospective British employer on July 13.  “Urgent kasi ang hiring sa babae nung July” (The hiring of women became urgent by July), she said. 

She is actually excited to go to Iraq, she said, as the promised pay amounts to PhP34,000 ($618.20) a month. 

She is ready to take the risks in Iraq, she said, even to die.  “Pag namatay ka dun may pera na matatanggap ang pamilya ko.  Kung dito ako mamatay baka wala ako kahit pambili lang ng kabaong,” (If I die in Iraq, my family would receive some money. If I die here, I probably wouldn’t even have money for a coffin), she said. 

Lift the ban

If she could talk to President Macapagal-Arroyo, the one thing that Corazon Tiglao, 43, would tell her would be to urge her to lift the ban on OFWs leaving for Iraq. 

“Yun lang ang nakaka-delay sa pag-alis namin” (It’s what’s delaying our departure), Corazon said.

Corazon, who hails from the town of Mexico in Pampanga and is a mother of eight, said she has been going back and fort from her province to the recruitment agency in Makati since January.

She needs the job in Iraq badly because some of her children have already stopped studying. Her husband is a contractual worker whenever he could get a job – in factories or construction projects. His daily salary of PhP180 ($3.27) falls short of the family needs.

Corazon said she borrowed money from private lenders for transportation and food in following up her application – a fact that makes her feel regretful. “Imbes na yung inuutang ko ay ipambili ko ng pagkain ng mga anak ko, ginagamit ko pa sa pamasahe” (Instead of spending the money I borrowed for food for my children, I have had to use to it for transportation), she said.

She has not gone home for five days.“Sayang lang pamasahe” (Transport fare would just go to waste), she said.

Like most of the applicants, Phoebe and Corazon sleep on the sidewalk during the times that they decide not to go home.  Since the start of the rainy season however, they have been sleeping in nearby houses for a fee.  They pay PhP30 ($0.54) for a night, another PhP10 ($0.18) for using the bathroom and PhP2-5 ($0.03-.09) for using the toilet. 

They eat at nearby turo-turo stores (sidewalk food stalls) whose prices are considerably lower than in restaurants or even fastfood chains. They can even buy half an order of a dish, costing them only PhP15 ($0.27), while rice is only PhP5 ($0.09).  

“Kailangan magtipid para may pang-gastos pa kami sa susunod na araw” (We have to save money for the next day), Corazon said. 

Located along Solchuago street in Pasong Tirad, Makati, the Anglo-European agency’s women applicants were mostly in their ‘40s. It’s the agency’s age requirement, they said.

This is the age, the prospective employers reportedly say, that is less prone to sexual harassment, as well as when the women have become proficient in household chores. 

The women applicants all agreed. And add one more thing: At this point in their lives and with the economic crisis, they are ready to take the risk for their families’ survival.  Bulatlat

*Kapampangan, the Pampanga native language, for “To Iraq.”

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