28 January 2009

Happy Chinese New Year

Chinese New Year is one of the most celebrated events in the City of Iloilo. The city did not celebrate it this year since the celebration falls during the Dinagyang Festival. Chinese Schools such as Chinese Commercial, Santa Maria and Sun Yat Sen (my alma Mater) prepare cultural shows for the Ilonggo people. There are Dragon Dances which forms part of the traditional Chinese New year. The Iloilo Hotel and Restaurant Association also held food festival for the event.

My family is partly Chinese but we do not celebrate the Chinese New Year. We’re 100% culturally assimilated and we feel more Filipino than the naturally born Filipinos. My great grandies had to fake several papers and bribe several government officials for us to be declared Filipinos though.

According to Chinese Lunar Calendar, this is the OX. It says that the year of the ox is not a financially optimistic year. People should be careful in putting money into high risk investments. It’s a general prediction since we all know that the whole world is now suffering recession. I was born on the year of the snake and my zodiac says that I’m not lucky this year but my lucky stars (Creative, Treasure and Promotion) counters that.
I may not really believe what my zodiac says but it still feels good to hear positive things. Self proclaimed psychics, astrologers and Fung Shui experts have this disclaimer that says ‘You make your own fate’. We make our own fate and destiny. If we will not work hard, we will not achieve the success that our stars had promised.

Chain Letters / Emails

I started to have an interest in my faith when I was in High School. I would often attend a mass and novena at San Jose Catholic School Parish. Aside from Santa Maria Catholic School Church, San Jose is the closest church from my school (Sun Yat Sen High School). Upon entering the church premises, I would often encounter chain letters dedicated to different saints. The bad thing about chain letters is that it warns you that an apparent danger is looming once you fail to offer a prayer to that saint or fail to mail it to other people. If an innocent school boy reads that, he will certainly be frightened. I was once frightened by those chain letters but I outgrew it eventually. Our Theology professor at San Agustin says that chain letters are not supposed to be read. They’re not part of Catholic Doctrine. If you receive such letter, the wise thing to do is to throw it away.

As technology advanced, chain letters becomes chain emails. I just received one today. It still contained a warning that if you fail to forward it, you’ll be cursed and would suffer bad luck. If you fail to pray, something bad will happen to you and your family, etc… etc… I don’t want to ruin my day so I just deleted it so I wouldn’t see it in my inbox anymore. My patience was however tested when people from the mailing list of the sender begun replying and forwarding the chain email back and forth. You are talking about more than 20 recipients there.

Chain letters / emails should be dealt with rationally. We’re all grown up and prided ourselves as professionals that things like this should not even be entertained. If you receive something of this sort just totally delete it in your inbox.

25 January 2009

Realities of being an OFW

I’ve been working outside the country for almost 8 years. Working here is a choice as there’s no other option back home. I work hard to earn my keep and I don’t expect any recognition for what I am doing. I believe that OFWs should not be patronized. Like me, they’re just doing everything for their families and they are not comfortable to titles that our politicians give them. There are Filipinos who also do noble work for the betterment of our country who deserved more accolades than our OFWs. Our Teachers, farmers, social workers and healthcare workers are the best examples of people who do noble jobs yet improperly compensated.

I received an email about pre conceived notions about OFWs and they are as follows:

-OFWs ARE RICH.
-IT’S TOUGH TO BE AN OFW, OFWs ARE TOUGH BUT ARE NOT MADE OF STONE
-OFWs GROW OLD
-OFWs ARE HEROES

As discussed in my previous posting, it’s tough for an OFW to save money. There are so many factors why an OFW can’t save enough. Mostly, OFWs has to send 75-80% of his income to his family back home. There are some who are not obliged to send money in the Philippines who are hooked up to extravagant spending.

The toughest thing of being an OFW I guess are cooking and doing the laundry on your own. Your Momma is not here so you have to do it all by yourself. OFWs tend to eat unhealthy meal without choices and variety. You may wonder why most OFWs are overweight and obese.

OFWs responsibility first and foremost is to his family. The money we regularly send home is for our family. It is in turn injected to our economy. Our government acknowledges our contribution to our economy by excluding us to pay taxes. We should be proud that we are able to feed our family but we should not ask for recognition.

Hopes are high in the Kingdom of the Sands

Last week I had the privilege to attend Brad Bourland’s lecture on the current world economic downturn. This is the second time I attended Brad Bourland’s lecture. The first one was the ‘WTO FORUM’ almost five years ago while he was still with SAMBA. He is now connected with JADWA Investments in Riyadh.

Brad said that recession, downturn or slowdown usually last for 9 months. The current crisis is now on its 14th month. He said that the current financial crisis would eventually mellow down on the first quarter of 2010. Recessions Brad says are part of the cycle of capitalism. He was very reassuring of the prospect of Saudi economy as the figures given by SAMA (Saudi Monetary Authority) states that lending in the Kingdom is at the all time high. It’s contrary to the predictions of so called world economic experts. SAMA also injected 300 Billion SAR to the Kingdom’s banking sector recently. The only affected sector he says are the individuals and companies directly involved in the Oil sector.

Back home, DOLE reported that hundreds of Filipinos lose their jobs daily as global economy slows down. Working hours and shifts were reduced in the most affected sectors like electronics. Intel Corporation, US chip maker closed down their chip making plant in Cavite. Prospects for the retrenched workers are depressing since deployment of OFWs last month plunged into all time low.

For us OFWs, this is the time to count our blessings and be thankful for everything we have. This is not the time to whine about how you are not well compensated. We have to be thankful that we still have a job. We have to work well for the sake of ourselves and our families back home who are counting on us.

07 January 2009

Savings

For most OFWs including myself, saving for the future is a continuous struggle. I would not call it a savings but I set aside a little amount of money for my annual vacation. That amount would totally be spent for ‘Pasalubong’ and financial dole outs at back home.

Out of the total monthly salary that I receive, 31.97% of that goes to my Mom, 15.96% goes to my Metrobank Account, 25.95% is spent for my SABB Mastercard, 26.12% for my living allowance. I spend most of my money on clothes. I work in a corporate environment and I don’t want to dress shabbily. I owe it to my job, the company I’m working for, my boss and to myself.

The savings I have do not come from my income here in the Kingdom of the Sands. My sister who manages our farm (since our father’s death) gave me 2 hectares of land last year. I financed everything from the planting, fertilizer, labor and everything related to sugarcane farming. In fact, my housing allowance (last year) that company gave on a yearly basis was sent home for my sugarcane farm. We’re expecting the first harvest of my sugarcane on March 2009. According to my sister, the expected amount I will receive from the harvest is approximately Php. 300,000. It could go up or down depending on the PSTC or the sugar content of my sugarcane. That would only be the gross amount since I would still have to pay my sister a management fee. I plan to roll that amount and would try to acquire at least one hectare every year. I could still see myself working here in Saudi Arabia for another 10-15 years so if I acquire 1 hectare a year, that would mean I will have 10-15 hectares of land when I retire. It’s not bad to dream right? (LOL).

Yesterday, our HR Manager gave me a print out of Philstar.com article about savings for OFWs. The Development Bank of the Philippines (DBP) recently launched ‘Deposito ng Bayaning Filipino’. The program gives an OFW an opportunity to earn 8.5% per annum at a minimum deposit of Php. 50,000. In nine (9) years, we could double our earnings. I think this is the best program that a Philippine bank has come up with for the OFWs.

05 January 2009

Good Intentions

In the Kingdom of the Sands, your good intention may bring you harm. Filipinos living in the Kingdom should never extend any help to anybody. It would be a contradiction to our belief and upbringing but that’s the best thing to avoid being put into jail simply because of your good intention to help others.

In good faith, a Filipino salesman in KIKA Riyadh helped a woman who dropped her belongings on the floor. He never realized that his good intentions will bring him harm. He spent the worst Christmas and New Year in his life because of that incident. The woman whom the Filipino salesman help, after the incident reported to the Customer Service and complained that she lost SR 3,500. She accused Kabayan of stealing that money from her. The Customer Service representative right away called the guards and they arrested the Kabayan. The guards suggested that the Kabayan should raise SR. 3,500 so that the woman would not call the police. The incident reached the Filipinos in that company so they decided to solicit money and was able to raise the amount. The story did not end there. The management decided to send Kabayan home because he was accused of theft. They were in doubt of the origins of the money raised by Kabayan.

What Kabayan had gone through should be a lesson to all Filipinos working here in the Kingdom of the Sands. If the same situation happens to you, think twice before jumping to help others. It’s better to be cautious than sorry.