Repost: There’s The Rub : Insanities

There’s The Rub : Insanities

By Conrado de Quiros
Columnist
Philippine Daily Inquirer

Posted date: August 27, 2008

The logic of Catch-22 was absurdly brilliant. From Joseph Heller’s novel explaining the concept:

“There was only one catch and that was Catch-22, which specified that a concern for one’s safety in the face of dangers that were real and immediate was the process of a rational mind. Orr was crazy and could be grounded. All he had to do was ask; and as soon as he did, he would no longer be crazy and would have to fly more missions. Orr would be crazy to fly more missions and sane if he didn’t, but if he was sane he had to fly them. If he flew them he was crazy and didn’t have to; but if he didn’t want to, he was sane and had to. Yossarian was moved very deeply by the absolute simplicity of this clause of Catch-22 and let out a respectful whistle.

“That’s some catch, that Catch-22.”

I remembered this after I read about the group Migrante complaining angrily about the proposal of the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) to subject all departing overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) to a psychiatric test. Migrante of course put its detraction in quite a different way. My own reaction was to see in it a reverse of Catch-22:

“There is only one catch and that is Catch-as-Catch-Can, which specifies that a concern for one and one’s family’s welfare in the face of hunger that is real and immediate is the sign of a rational mind. Juana is sane and may fly abroad. All she has to do is undergo the DFA test. But as soon as she does, she ceases to be sane, proposing as she does to throw herself willy-nilly into unknown dangers in unknown lands, and deserves to be grounded. Juana would be sane to avoid risking untold dangers and would be crazy to do so, but if she is sane then she is qualified to go abroad and risk untold dangers. If she prefers to stay here, she is sane and may therefore go abroad; if she wants to go abroad, she is crazy and may only stay here. We have to marvel at the absolute simplicity of this clause of Catch-as-Catch Can. ”

But as I said, Migrante put it differently. Specifically, Migrante said: “(It’s the) DFA officials who should have their heads examined if they really believe mandatory psychiatric tests could help prevent OFWs from snapping in the workplace. (Their proposal) essentially typecasts OFWs as lunatics. By refusing to acknowledge the realities of OFW work—deplorable working conditions, verbal, physical, emotional and sexual abuse, torture and nonpayment of wages—and by conveniently glossing over the fact that most of the time OFWs commit crimes to defend themselves while others are simply framed, the DFA in essence is condemning our OFWs. If we followed their logic, then Sarah Balabagan, Mary Jane Ramos and Joselito Alejo were lunatics and not heroes, as they were hailed when they arrived home from their overseas ordeal.”

It’s a good point, and one we would do very well to ponder. The question is whether the person you are sending out is loony-tunes or the place he is going to is bound to make him so. Or put another way, the question is whether the person you are sending out is a risk to the community you are sending him out to or the conditions of work you are sending him out to are a risk to the person you are sending out. In many cases, the second is truer than the first. It’s the deplorable working conditions, the verbal, physical, emotional and sexual abuse, the torture, the nonpayment of wages that make OFWs snap and go berserk. That is probably more the rule than the exception. No exam is going to change that.

I do think a pre-departure orientation seminar is in order. Many OFWs do go out without an appreciation, or even bare knowledge, of the place they are going to, and many sources of conflicts have to do simply with clashes of cultures. I know that because my friends from FASAP (Flight Attendants and Stewards Association of the Philippines ) have a lot of horror stories about it. They often had to take on the job of the DFA, admonishing OFWs on board flights to fundamentalist Muslim countries to leave their Bibles and religious icons or paraphernalia in the plane. Those items will be confiscated at Immigration anyway, if their possessors do not end up enduring nightmarish ordeals at the airport. A modicum of understanding of the ways of others should go a long way toward keeping sane in straitened circumstances.

But there is a larger point here, which is what my reference to Catch-22 is meant to suggest. That is the spectacle of following logic in an illogical situation, or enforcing sanity in the part while madness riots in the whole. It goes by many names: Catch-22, the tail wagging the dog, micro-sense micro madness.

There is something sublimely absurd about making sure that only sane people are sent out to do insane work. There is something violently contradictory about guaranteeing that people are able to keep their family together by exposing them to conditions that guarantee they will tear their family asunder. There is something maddeningly insane about assuring that people are sufficiently sane to carry out the insane task of keeping a country afloat by sending its people to work abroad.

I don’t know of any country today that is so dependent on overseas work. That has for its lifeblood overseas work. That cannot survive for one day without overseas work. Absurdity piles up on absurdity. I don’t know of any country today that is so desperate for overseas work it is willing to send its citizens to places God or Allah forgot. I don’t know of any country today that has turned whole universities into nursing schools, or turned entire departments into adjuncts of the nursing one. I don’t know of any country today that doesn’t even mind selling itself, quite apart from its people, to the highest bidder, piece by piece, parcel by parcel, lot by lot, just to survive—or to make its officials happy.

And we want our OFWs sane.

——

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http://www.gmanews.tv/story/116490/Psych-tests-will-protect-OFWs—DFA-official

http://www.ofw.pinoyoverseas.net/mandatory-psych-test-for-leaving-ofws-opposed/

http://globalnation.inquirer.net/news/breakingnews/view/20080529-139616/Migrant-workers-groups-reject-psychological-tests

OFWs admit ‘crimes’ to be able to come home

By Dennis Jay Santos
Mindanao Bureau

Posted date: August 22, 2008

DAVAO CITY, Philippines—Majority of the recently repatriated 37 overseas Filipino workers (OFW) from Jordan said they were forced to admit crimes because Philippine Embassy officials told them it was the only way they could go home.

“Umamin na lang daw kami, para makauwi na (They told us to just admit it so we could come home),” May Ann Abat, 23, of Davao del Norte, said.

Abat, who left the country to work in Jordan on October 27 last year, arrived at the Davao International Airport here on Thursday and was met by her two sons and her parents.

Abat said after a few months working in Jordan as a domestic helper, her abusive employer, who runs a jewelry shop in Amman, accused her of stealing a diamond.

She said she did not do it but was jailed despite her denial.

After a while, Abat said she and the other OFWs were told by a staffer at the Philippine Embassy in Jordan to “admit the trumped-up charges.”

“The embassy will give us a ticket back home,” Abat recalled what they were told about without identifying who the embassy staffer was.

She said she and the other OFWs were left with no other choice but to admit the crimes falsely imputed to them.

Jenylyn Caro, 24, of North Cotabato, said she was also among those given no other choice.

“Mercy or justice. We were told that if we choose to fight the case in court and deny the charges, our abusive employers will file another false accusation,” Caro said.

She said they were warned that denying the charges would just prolong their stay in jail but admitting them would result in some kind of a pardon.

Bai Lanie Kayao, of Maguindanao province, said she was arrested and jailed after she ran away from an allegedly abusive employer.

Kayao said while in jail, her employer told her she would only be freed if she paid 1,000 Jordanian dinar or about P64,170.

Kayao said she told her employer she had no money and the only way she could pay them was to work for them again.

She said she told them if they let her work again, they would have to spend more money on her.

“So I begged them to let me go instead and send me home,” she said.

Senate President Manny Villar, who arranged the repatriation of the three OFWs, said there could be more than 100 OFWs still locked up in Jordan.

Villar said most of those still in that country also face trumped-up charges.

Villar lamented that while a ban on deployment of OFWs to Jordan remained, many Filipinos seeking work still managed to go there.

He said a bill that would mandate government to help both documented and undocumented OFWs was being crafted now.

—

http://globalnation.inquirer.net/news/breakingnews/view/20080822-156320/OFWs-admit-crimes-to-be-able-to-come-home

Migrant group slams mandatory psychiatric tests for OFWs

MANILA, Philippines—The proposal of the Department of Foreign Affairs
to subject all departing overseas Filipino workers to psychiatric
tests drew flak from a militant migrant group, which said the
government move “essentially typecasts OFWs as lunatics.”

Migrante International said it should be the DFA officials, not the
OFWs, “who should have their heads examined if they really believe
mandatory psychiatric tests could help prevent OFWs from snapping in
the workplace.”

“For the Arroyo government, those they have hailed as ‘bagong bayani
(new heroes)’ are lunatics,” complained Connie Bragas-Regalado,
Migrante chair said in a statement.

Regalado said the DFA should realize that deplorable working
conditions overseas; verbal, physical, emotional and sexual abuse;
torture and non-payment of wages are major factors that drive OFWs to
the brink of insanity.

“By refusing to acknowledge these realities and by conveniently
glossing over the fact that most of the time OFWs commit crimes to
defend themselves, others are just plain victims of frame-up; the
DFA, in essence, is condemning our OFWs,” Regalado said.

The Migrante leader slammed Vice President Noli de Castro and DFA
undersecretary for migrant workers affairs Esteban Conejos for even
considering such “a preposterous and anti-migrant proposal,”
adding, “It’s such a shame that those who are directly responsible
for pushing migrants’ rights are the ones who are blind and deaf to
the real issues OFWs face.”

“If we’re to follow the DFA’s rationale, then OFWs like Sarah
Balabagan, Mary Jane Ramos and Joselito Alejo are lunatics and not
heroes as they were hailed when they arrived home after their ordeal
overseas,” said Regalado, referring to OFWs who have been jailed for
committing crimes, but escaped execution because they were eventually
acquitted or pardoned.

The Migrante leader said a change of view was needed for both De
Castro, presidential adviser on OFWs, and Conejos, co-chair of the
Global Forum on Migrants and Development that the Philippines will be
hosting October 29-30 this year.

Regalado said Migrante will join other migrant workers groups from
other countries in a parallel International Assembly of Migrants and
Refugees, set for October 28-29, to challenge the GFMD “to face up to
the truth that migration can never lead to development. ”

– By Jerome Aning
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 17:25:00 08/22/2008

————–

TUCP slams proposed psychiatric tests for OFWs

By Jerome Aning
Philippine Daily Inquirer

Posted date: August 23, 2008

MANILA, Philippines — The Trade Union Congress of the Philippines on Saturday denounced as “downright ridiculous” a plan to require every Filipino seeking overseas employment, particularly domestic helpers, to undergo a mandatory psychiatric examination.

The labor group said administering psychiatric tests on such a large scale would be problematic and might just turn into a racket victimizing overseas Filipino workers.

TUCP general secretary Ernesto Herrera said the number of foreign-bound Filipino domestic helpers with potential psychiatric issues was insignificant compared to the overall volume of OFWs.

Herrera said many actually develop behavioral issues on the job overseas, indicating that psychiatric problems were “largely environmentally induced, not necessarily organic.”

“This is mainly due to vicious foreign employers who practically enslave their maids, and force them to work and live under inhuman conditions,” he said.

Herrera said some abusive employers resort to detaining their domestic staff and denying them normal access to the outside world.

“Naturally, the maids risk developing behavioral issues over time,” he said.

The office of the undersecretary for overseas workers affairs at the Department of Foreign Affairs has “strongly recommended” the mandatory psychiatric test to the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration which licenses recruitment agencies.

It made the recommendation based on information that seven out of 10 Filipino maids on death row in the Middle East have had a history of mental illness.

Herrera doubted if any psychiatric test could be properly administered on a large scale, considering the volume of outbound Filipino domestic staff.

He said the country does not have adequate behavioral health care services so that there are not enough psychiatrists and mental health professionals to conduct the tests and process the results correctly.

“We simply do not have the competence. What will happen is that untrained personnel of diagnostic centers will end up administering and interpreting the test results,” he said.

–

http://globalnation.inquirer.net/news/breakingnews/view/20080823-156447/TUCP-slams-proposed-psychiatric-tests-for-OFWs