Actually the point you made about a family member going to some enlightened country where they can earn permanent residency via their work and then sponsor family members is a major reason I have written several articles here and on Bob’s magazine.

Show how (likely because I don’t get to the point quick enough) it sort of turned into a my country is better thna your country kind of debate. But the simple fact is, some countries treat hired workers as perpetual second-class non-citizens and others allow law-abiding and hardworking folks to shall we say, “earn their way in.”

Years ago my own country was the leader in this game … people never stop to think how a nation that started from a few poor dirt farmers and blacksmiths and becmae the richest and most powerful naton on earth. It surely wasn’t by tightening the borders, but instead by accepting the rich gists of people other nations seemed happy to give up.

So my advice to Filipinos who want a better life and feel they should or must look for it overseas is, don’t go to a second class country that will threat you as a third-class person, and then send you home with nothing to show but the price of a wornout jeepney and a Magic Sing. Instead seek out the places … and they are out there … where you will be valued for your personal worth and skills and take advantage of opportunities.

Btw, some cruiser friends of ours are interested to come over. One asked if there are any jobs to keep the cruising kitty going. Hope they read your website

But there are many times I really can’t belive the lack of vison or hope in so many people … US or Filipino. A common expression in some Filipno familes . Ay, patay na! .. loosely translate, OMG, we’re dead now, seems to dominate thinking.

Rome can’t be built overnight and years of chronic neglect can’t be undone in an afternoon, but I still think it is worth my while to try. It may be the best choice or even the only choice at some times for some people … hey, I would migrate to Antarctica to be a posso negro man if that’s the only way I could feed a family … but the idea that national abandonment is the only way to earn a liivng … perpetuated at even the highest levels of government is just outright patent nonsense.

I think I should redouble my efforst to make more people, flilipno and fireginer alike aware that making a living in the Philippines is _not_ an impossible dream and that a ‘job’ is not the only way to make a living.

I am not really an idealist. I realize Philippines have a lot of poor people and if they can go elsewhere and get better jobs and a better life, that is good. For some who abuse the system, there will be those who are taken advantage of. But there are still plenty more who have reaped the benefits and end up with a happy ending. I just hope there are more cases like that than what is being portrayed in the documentary.

The reality is, not everyone is qualified for any OFW job. But unscrupulous companies just ‘feed on the need’ and take their money anyway. As my example shows, legitimate employment companies are paid by the employers, if you are being asked a fee just to apply you are very likely being scammed.

I know that both you and your husband are successful OFW’s (or ONW ) and there is nothing wrong with seeking to better ones self with overseas work … heck I spent many years working outside the US. But the current philiosphy in the Philippines that seems to treat it as the country’s very salvation is wrong, wrong, wrong.

The passport incidents happen all the time. People hire a ‘fixer’ and sometimes the fixer is really a forger and just manufacturers a passport. That is what happened in the case I know of. The traveler tried to leave the country and got nabbed for having a phony document … whuch was confiscated by the NBI, and the person only escaped prosecution by going through a lot ofl legal gyrations. How much simpler would it have been to do it right.

BTW, you can read about me geting my driver’s license at:
http://philfaqs.com/them-thats-living-there/a-visit-to-the-lto-for-my-us-readers/

It is _not_ necessary to use a fixer. In act at the main LTO office in Quezon City where I went, the ‘fixers’ are kept out via an armed guard and the waiting room and offices where the license applications are processed are contibnuoulsy monitored by CCTV cameras and the LTO head has vowed to fire bribe-takers.

Likewise I take care of my own Immingration business at the Angles City office. There are no ‘fixers’ allowedin theplace an I have never been approached ny one.

What you do get is continual advice from Filipino friends that the various offcies will try to screw you because \yu are a foreigner and thus you can’t do it on your own.

Well, again, I’m not a fool … I might get trouble some day, but so far doing things straight up has worked out well for me. My expereince so far has been that Filipinos think less of their own country than I do … I expect the best and treat bad things as an exception, the prevailing attitude seems to be that every dealing with a government office will be disater and only a very rare success by rare exception.

In the end it is more fun to travel hopefully, or so I believe.

Interesting insight that Filipinos often feel they have to pay a fixer for things they are entitled to like passports and other documents. I know these “fixers” find lots of customers at the LTO. I never heard that they played their games at the passport office.