Manila - Single mother Maritess Paloma had a simple dream in
mind when she left home to work in Taiwan in June 2008 - to save
enough money to buy a house in the northern Philippine province of
Bulacan.
The dream crumbled when less than five months later, when she was
laid off from her job at a Taiwan semiconductor factory.
'Our supervisors told us that there were really no more orders
coming in so they had to let us go,' she said. 'My world almost
collapsed then. I asked a friend in Taiwan to help me find new work,
but she also lost her job.'
'There was nothing more I could do there so I went back home in
November 2008,' she said.
Home for Paloma is now a cramped rented room she shares with her
12-year-old daughter in Plaridel town in Bulacan province, 45
kilometres north of Manila. The room is only big enough for one
double bed, a table, a cabinet and a refrigerator.
After earning 600 dollars a month in Taiwan, she now has to make
do with just 100 dollars a month, which she earns from selling ice,
beer and soft drinks.
'Sometimes, when I have no more money, we turn to our neighbours
for help,' Paloma said. 'They give us food, sometimes we eat just
rice, just to get by. That's okay as long as we survive.'
Paloma regrets that her 69-year-old mother, who took care of her
daughter while she worked in Taiwan, has been forced to move back to
her brother's thatched farm hut since she lost her job.
'We only have simple dreams,' she said. 'We only want to live
comfortably, to have our own house. That would have to wait for now.'
Paloma is not alone in her struggle, with tens of thousands of
Filipino workers losing their jobs both at home and abroad as
companies reel from the impact of the global financial crisis.
Since October 2008, more than 5,400 Filipinos have lost their
overseas jobs and have come home, the Philippine Overseas Employment
Administration said. The number could be higher but some workers have
refused to return home in the hope of finding other jobs abroad.
Locally, more than 45,000 workers have been laid off throughout
the Philippines since October as multinational companies and
export-oriented businesses closed shop or cut back on operations.
The latest job cuts were announced by TDK Fujitsu Philippines
Corp, which is laying off 2,000 workers by mid-April, and Fujitsu
Computer Products Philippines, which will dismiss 1,750 employees in
the coming months.
Unemployment has risen to 7.7 per cent in January from 7.4 per
cent a year ago, with nearly 9 million Filipinos either out of work
or underemployed, according to the government.
Remittances from overseas Filipinos, a key growth engine for the
domestic economy, rose a mere 0.1 per cent to 1.3 billion dollars in
January from the same month in 2008. It was the slowest growth in
remittances in five years.
Last year, remittances totalled 16.42 billion dollars, growing a
better-than-expected 13.7 per cent despite the economic crunch.
The central bank said it was hopeful that remittances would pick
up later in the year, noting that Filipinos were still finding jobs
overseas.
According to government data, the number of workers who found jobs
abroad rose 27.3 per cent year-on-year in the first two months of
2009 to 283,348 despite the economic crunch.
Aileen Luis, 25, whose parents and three siblings were relying on
her monthly remittances to augment their income as farm workers, is
aggressively looking for work just two months after she lost her job
in Taiwan.
'I've filled up dozens of application forms and sent out my
resumes to anywhere that has an opening since I came back on January
9,' she said. 'I might just get lucky and even find work abroad
again.'
Luis, whose family lives in Laoag City in Ilocos Norte province,
405 kilometres north of Manila, earned nearly 500 dollars a month
when she worked in Taiwan.
'I thought my fortune was turning around, and that I will finally
be able to pay off our family's debt, and maybe even buy our own
farmland,' she said. 'My parents are getting old, and I want to be
able to give them a better life.'
'Without my job now, I can't even give them money for food,' she
added. 'They eat only the extra harvest they get from the land that
they farm for a big family in Ilocos Norte. If there's no extra, then
they don't eat.'
Luis now lives with a friend in Manila, while looking for work.
She sells snacks from her friend's house, but earns less than 100
dollars a month.
'I'm lucky my friend lets me stay with her for free,' she said. 'I
don't know where I'll end up without her. I really need to find a new
job. I'll do anything, even if I'll earn lower than my previous work.
I just need to find work again.'
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