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Monday, January 20, 2014

Misbehaving OFW’s: the Filipinos’ own worst enemy


January 20, 2014
by FallenAngel
bottom-of-barrell
Ok na sana daw for Pinoy Pride and the reputation of Filipino caregivers/nurses eh. What with Rose Fostanes, a long-time caregiver in Israel, winning their local version of the program X-factor. She became yet another “hero” that the validation starved Filipinos would be using in order to prop up to the world that they are a great and important people.

Then came the news of the one dubbed the Satanist nurse, Blaze Binder, who supposedly took pictures of herself next to dead pensioners in the Swiss aged care facility where she works.
That’s not all. There was also news of the Pinoy nurse caught on video molesting a bedridden patient, and news of another one sexually abusing a male quadriplegic Afghanistan war veteran. Both in the United States.
Even back further, in 2012 there was also news of the Filipino nurse jailed in UK for attacking an 80-year old Alzheimer’s patient.
One good example versus four bad ones of Filipino caregivers/nurses. That doesn’t look good for their reputation.
It takes a lot of time and effort for a good reputation to be built up, and only a moment, one very bad incident, to destroy it. In our sample above alone, we found four bad incidents involving Filipino nurses. Who knows how many more incidents of Filipino nurses taking advantage of or abusing the elderly they are supposed to take care of go undocumented?
And Filipinos, don’t even think about saying that that “accolade” or “commendation” for Fostanes is worth any spit. It wasn’t even for her skills as a caregiver or nurse! Are Filipinos going to tell us, like they do over and over again, that a Filipino like Fostanes who wins a competition abroad inspires the rest of her countrymen? But for what? Where are the results of such inspiration?
That pride Filipinos incessantly insist on propping up every chance they get? It has now fallen apart like the house of cards it really is underneath.
Let’s face it, is there anything to be proud of as a nation that sends out its citizens to work as caregivers and/or nurses in other parts of the world just so they can make ends meet, and because there aren’t enough decent jobs for them back home?
Filipinos will insist that the misbehavior of a handful of them should not be used to make a generalization that Filipino overseas foreign workers (OFW’s) are to be avoided like the plague. Not all Filipinos are like that; people should not generalize – so they claim.
Well, boohoo. Tough luck.
It takes only a few bad apples to spoil the whole bunch. And the fact that Filipinos are so dependent on foreign employers for jobs they can’t get back home? Filipinos have the gall to tell the world what to think! By virtue of the one seeking employment abroad, they are in no position to bargain and tell the world what to think of them; they must prove themselves consistently, and without fail. They think that they are so entitled to the available jobs out there; by virtue of being Filipino alone, they are the best at what they do.
They are good at being ass-wipers and bottom feeders. They are good at getting themselves into trouble.
What Filipinos have consistently failed to exhibit, are the following:
1) That they can wean themselves off their pathetic dependence on foreign money to fund their excessive consumerism;
2) That the number of those who go into nursing mainly for money and notfor the love of the profession do not affect the reputation of Filipino nurses negatively and in general, and;
3) That they can be generally known for anything other than as the replaceable cogs in professional industries abroad.
Katulongtaga-punas ng pwet, and nagtatrabaho sa oil rig – just a few examples of ways that the Filipinos are driven to desperation and to scrape the bottom of the barrel, all because of conditions back home that are, to a large extent, of their own doing.
As benign0 had recently pointed out:
Hopefully, governments of affluent countries will recognise the risks posed by foreign Third World nurses on its citizens and step up efforts to boost domestic capacity for producing this much-needed skill within their respective populations.
It’s not a matter of if, it’s when. And when this does happen, what’s the Philippines going to do when the thousands (possibly even millions) of displaced Filipino workers will be forced to go back home?
Nothing. Filipinos and their government will simply grin and bear it, all because they can be easily convinced by a man of the cloth that overpopulation is good for Filipinos.
Filipinos will simply keep trying their luck overseas and beg some more.
It’s a vicious cycle – one that Filipinos don’t seem to want to break.
[Photo courtesy: beagardner.com]

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