HACIENDA LUISITA — Protesting laborers and farm workers here, joined by their respective families and reinforced by militant activists, have practically taken control over nearly all movements in this sprawling sugar estate owned by the family of former President Corazon Aquino.
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Luisita resumes milling operations as tension eases
HACIENDA LUISITA — Tension has somewhat eased in this 6,000-hectare sugar plantation, as the ranks of the protesters who locked up the refinery during the weekend have thinned out, allowing the Central Azucarera de Tarlac (CAT) to resume its milling operations noontime Monday.
Full story...
Truck attacks force Luisita mill closure anew
HACIENDA LUISITA — The “violent and destructive” actions being carried out by alleged “troublemakers” among the ranks of protesters here has forced Luzon’s biggest sugar mill to shutdown anew its operations Tuesday morning, after these were briefly resumed around noontime last Monday.
Full story...
7-month long Rabbit strike ends
TARLAC CITY — The almost seven-month long strike in one of the country’s oldest transport company finally came to an end, as the Philippine Rabbit Bus Lines (PRBL) commenced plying major routes from Metro Manila to Central and Northern Luzon again.
Subic allows FedEx to operate ecozone hub until 2013
TARLAC CITY — The Subic Bay Metropolitan Authority (SBMA) has recently decided to extend the lease contract of air courier giant, the Federal Express (FedEx), up to August 2010.
Int’l media watchdog: RP hostile for journalists
TARLAC CITY — Although the country has a “free and lively press,” the Philippines has been counted by the Paris-based international media watchdog as one of the places most hostile to journalists.
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Nov. 1 - 31, 2004
The village that OFW remittances built
BRGY. MAPANIQUE, Candaba, Pampanga – What used to be nipa huts of some 200 families here are now concrete, two-storey houses. This farming and fishing village has been transformed by the economic bounty from its residents who work abroad, mostly in Japan.
Rudy Turla’s house is the biggest in the area -- a two-story house with a three-car garage, and an air conditioner in every room.
Turla, 63, attributes all these to his for children – three sons and a daughter -- who currently work in Japan.
“They left years ago, I think in 1985,” says Turla. Two of his sons are bartenders, Another is in construction work, while his only daughter works “inside a club”.
Apart from building him a comfortable house, Turla says his children’s remittances have enabled him to pay for his long-standing debts.
“I was able to have a house built. I don’t have to borrow money anymore. I was even able to buy farmland,” he told the OFW Journalism Consortium.
Barangay captain Mateo Kalinting, a former OFW in Japan, estimates that 200 of the 700 households here have family members working abroad. These household are the envy of the other residents because of the houses they have been able to build.
The OFW usually sends home one or two lapad (a lapad is equal to P10,000) at a time. According to the families interviewed, their relatives employed in Japan send money only every other month.
But Brgy. Mapanique’s migrant workers do not only come from Japan, said Kalinting. “There are some from Korea and the United States.”
Besides being known as the place that OFWs to Japan built, Mapanique is also known for its comfort women – young women who, during the Japanese occupation, were recruited by the Imperial Army and forced to provide sexual favors for Japanese soldiers. On November 23,1944, the Japanese Imperial Army bombed the barangay and tortured and summarily executed all the male residents in front of their wives, mothers, sisters and children.
Some 47 comfort women have filed a case with the Supreme Court to compel the Philippine government to represent the war victims in their claim for an official apology and reparations from the Japanese government.
NOW MEN GO TO JAPAN
At the start, it was the women of Brgy. Mapanique residents who tended to go to Japan as overseas performing artists (OPAs), also known as japayuki. But Kalinting said the numbers have declined and these days, most of the residents going to Japan are men who go into construction work.
He estimates that some 70 percent of Mapanique residents who go to Japan are from 20 to 25 years old and a considerable of then are women.
The Philippine Overseas Employment Agency (POEA) has cited Japan as one of the top five destination countries of OFWs. The POEA figure of OFWs deployed to Japan was 38,930 in 1986 and 77,870 in 2002. Last year, however, deployment of OFWs to Japan, including overseas performing artists (OPAs), was down to 62,539.
According to the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas, remittances from OFWs in Japan are also rising. From $107.807 million in 1997, Japan-based OFWs sent home US$469.080 million in 2002.
According to the POEA, in 2002, some 11,720 women and 582 men worked as choreographers and dancers, and 17,735 women and 678 men worked as musicians and singers in Japan. Other OFWs in Japan include construction workers, cabinetmakers, and machine operators – all of them male.
Some of the OFWs work as bartenders, like 45-year-old Carlos Hernandez who, aside from bartending, did multiple tasks in Japan to fend for his family. He has returned to Mapanique for good.
“Sometimes I washed the dishes, I went to the market, and I even cleaned the floor,” recalled Hernandez of his nine-years working in Nagoya and in other parts of Japan.
SOCIAL COST
While he earned Y200,000 (or ten lapads) a month, Hernandez said his years in Japan had its costs to his family.
“When I worked in Japan, my starting salary was Y200,000. I was able to send money to my wife and children and they were able to live a comfortable life. But there was a gap growing between me and my wife, and my children are already growing up. So I decided to go back here for good,” Hernandez said.
According to Hernandez, marital problems such his wife’s suspicion that he was having extra marital affairs in Japan, became a concern that he had to settle. After all, he said, his wife and children are more important than his job in Japan.
Others, like Mang Rudy Turla, are luckier. Supporting his family with great difficulty through farming, Mang Rudy incurred large debts, and he had no savings.
But his family’s situation changed when his children went abroad to work and their remittances starting coming in. His eldest son, Rey, now owns a recruitment agency that sends workers to Japan – including OPAs – from the barangay and the towns outside of Candaba.
The effect of the growing culture of migration in the barangay, Kalinting said, “is not bad” because residents know that the possible end result will be a house for their families.
Kalinting said that residents of Mapnique do are not afraid to migrate to Japan . In fact, they feel secure “because they have contacts and relatives there who can help them”.
GREAT CHANGES IN MAPANIQUE
Teta, who grew up in Mapanique, told the OFW Journalism Consortium there have been great changes in the village since its residents started working abroad.
“Before, there were people who lived in nipa huts who would go to their neighbors with concrete houses to eat lunch with them. Now they have their own concrete homes. People here will never think that they were poor before,” she said.
Candaba is a second-class municipality in the fourth district of Pampanga. It has 33 barangays in an area of 208.7 sq. kms., 86,066 residents, and 15,541 households. According to Candaba’s three-term vice mayor Daniel C. Gallardo, however, he has seen “very minimal changes” in Mapanique, and in Candaba as a whole.
“Very little help is received from the government to make improvements in infrastructure, as livelihood programs for residents are very minimal,” said Gallardo. “The only projects we can accomplish here are basic road concreting, and artesian wells for the different barrios, and also for residents’ health needs.”
Newly-elected town mayor Jerry Pelayo, who won last May over re-electionist Babes Lapuz-Evangelista and another former mayor, Ben Gatus, vowed to improve living conditions in the town during his three-year term.
Even as Mapanique changes and overcomes its tragic past and current economic difficulties, Hernandez thinks the people of Mapanique will continue to seek greener pastures abroad, and opt to sacrifice by leaving their families behind.
“Leaving our families behind and working abroad is really difficult but we have to. Even though we do not have a house as big as the ones you see now, not even that much money -- those who are leaving for Japan, we just want a more comfortable life.”
[back]
Luisita strikers to Cory family: Ditch ‘bogus’ union leaders[Full story...]The Hacienda Luisita Tragedy[Full story...]Ka Roger claims NPA ‘military contacts’ say Luisita massacre was premeditated[Full story...]Hacienda Luisita: A tragedy on Ninoy’s 72nd birthday[Full story...]Protesters take control of Hacienda Luisita[Full story...]Luisita resumes milling operations as tension eases[Full story...]Truck attacks force Luisita mill closure anew[Full story...]Reds, Church group back Luisita protests[Full story...]Tarlac dads help in averting violence at Luisita[Full story...]Subic allows FedEx to operate ecozone hub until 2013[Full story...]
Int’l media watchdog: RP hostile for journalists[Full story...]
Reds: ‘GMA is ripe for ousting’[Full story...]
General Yano outlines new CRSAFP thrust[Full story...]
