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by Arnold De Villa
September 3, 2011
Such was the title of an internet article released by Agence France-Presse on August 23rd, 2011, posted through the on-line version of the Philippine Inquirer. According to the article, Evangeline Banao Vallejos, a domestic helper in Hong Kong for more than twenty-five years, was denied permanent residency, despite a legal provision that allows foreigners to have a permanent status after seven years of uninterrupted residence. Nonetheless, there are allegedly 292,000 domestic helpers excluded from this legal benefit.
Vallejos filed a lawsuit attesting that the law was biased, unfair and unconstitutional. Back in the Philippines, family members and friends of Hong Kong tourists shot and killed a year ago by a disgruntled former police officer, sought for closure and a request to meet with the highest ranking government official hoping for an apology for the “inappropriate” way that the incident was handled. No one met with them.
Behind the plight of ordinary people are government protagonists, biased antagonists, and imperfect political structures that either uplift or downgrade our quality of life. Their behaviors, in consonance or dissonance with human life, are not easy to comprehend and are at times beyond rational speculation. Does any government have the right to deny, accept and choose people who reside in their territory? Is there a human right that guarantees the application of the same legal benefits in any country regardless of our original nationality? Was Hong Kong right in stating the denial of a “maid’s” residency as appropriate? Are these questions right?
Advocates on both sides will pull and push in a constant toggle of rights and entitlements against the backdrop of protectionism and fear. From an angle of theories and principles, the Darwinian’s concept of survival could probably explain the dilemma between humane behavior and legal survival.
Although we live and dwell on the same planet, sharing resources from a common earth, man has progressed from being tribal nomads and evolved in becoming sovereign stalwarts, anchored in a permanent residence marked by stability and order. With this change, rights have somewhat been converted into entitlements and laws have been manipulated to exclude anyone who is deemed undesirable. There are no common frontiers, no common territory, no common resources, undivided by self-interests or untarnished by power.
When Hong Kong denied the permanent residency of Vallejos despite the fact that she had been there for twenty years or more, and if Hong Kong denies and bars all domestic helpers from being permanent residents, don’t they have the moral duty to first protect their own citizens? It seems that the portability of work is totally detached from the benefits of permanence. Sad to say, or perhaps expectedly, Hong Kong is not alone with this immigration policy. There are other countries with similar or even worse rules.
Meanwhile, in the US, the number of Filipinos applying for US citizenship is dwindling. It is ironic that in a land that has pioneered large scale global immigration, there are those who do not care in being involved or assimilated in a country that adopted them. I have heard of Filipino US residents who are vehemently opposed in becoming citizens. Yet, they do not want to anchor themselves back in the Philippines. Unless the person is a diplomat or a military, what can a citizen do for his country when he or she resides somewhere else? Unfortunately, the true modern nomads do not have any affiliation or commitment to any government, nationality or country. They will be wherever benefits are, where the grass is greener without the need to plant a seed, where work is abundant and taxes are not abusive, where life is easy and food is plenty.
While there are Filipinos who refuse to become US citizens, there are those with double citizenship who will only choose the better and the greater. I still do not get what double citizenship means. If ever war erupts between the Philippines and the US, I wonder what those citizens with dual commitments do. Do they even know what a patriotic commitment is?
After all these, convenience and the adverse reaction against change are perhaps the most common reasons as to why governments hesitate in being more open with their immigration policies and the same reason as to why some long time foreign US legal residents will not ever want to be a permanent citizen. After all, as many of them would say, “what for”? They do not care about voting anyway.
I believe that we Filipinos are more like a tribal nomad, risking whatever it takes to improve our lot, going wherever the grass is greener, because the lands back home are withered and dying. Like Vallejos, we may dwell in a territory that does not like us. Or like the legal Filipino residents in the US who will not even bother being citizens, we may be pampered with too much stuff. We might want the benefits of stability without the committed responsibility of a citizen. Or we might just want to work and save, hopefully going back to our birthplace before we die. But if that is what we are, isn’t it sad that so many of us are in this plight because of the lack of opportunity at home? Perhaps not. In the realm of survival, the country of origin probably does not matter. Yet the problems will emerge from the receiving end. It makes us wonder where this will end?