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| 19Flags.com |
It's Valentine's Day, right? Not so happy Valentine's Day when you think that many Filipino women (or termed as Filipina in Filipino English) are marrying foreigners to flee poverty. Just reading the article from the Philippine Star is making me think about why Valentine's Day, like Christmas, isn't as magical as people want to make it. I could call it a Cinderella story. The story of Cinderella is often told as a woman who gets rescued by her Prince Charming. Maybe, some remember the classic Disney's Cinderella from their childhood. Why is the Cinderella mentality so prevalent in the Philippines? It's because of the lack of job opportunities. The talks of families torn apart by the OFW phenomenon can't be minimized. The memes of the OFW provider vs. the recipient wasting the money is no joke.
This reminds me of what's often called the American dream. I even think of some people I met who wished that a white man will swoop them away to some magical country. Sadly, some white men going after Filipina women aren't exactly trustworthy. I still believe some Filipinas married their foreign husbands out of love. I have nothing if a Filipina marries a fine foreigner out of love. However, marrying a foreigner in hopes of escaping poverty can be a big trap. Some even date much older foreign men which is probably in their hopes it's a 4M - matandang mayaman madaling mamatay. In English, it's the rich old man dies fast! In my case, I wanted to go to the USA, marry a blonde American woman, and restart my life all over there when I was a teenager.
If not the American dream, some Filipinas also have been marrying foreigners from Asian countries. Marriage between Japanese men and Filipinas is becoming more common these days. I even remembered meeting a Cebuano Filipina who married a Taiwanese man. I go to an Indian restaurant where I found a Filipina married to a Singaporean Indian. So far, these couples I met didn't look like the "old enough to be the father" type. There are some Filipinas who have married Arabian men. Some of these stories are about OFW Filipinas who met their husbands abroad. We also have Filipinos marrying Europeans to their age. The parents of celebrity Georgina Diaz Wilson (now Mrs. Georgina Wilson-Burnard) are British and Filipino. Catriona Eloisa Magdayon Gray's father is from Australia. We meet some Filipino celebrities who are at least half-white. I believe that some of these are born out of true love and not the need to escape poverty.
I'm afraid that Filipinas marrying foreigners can be romanticized as "acts of conquest". Some time ago, I wrote about how some people tend to think OFW program and FDI are both "acts of conquest". Are you now trying to tell me that the Philippines is conquering the world through Filipinas marrying foreigners? The idea is ridiculous because Filipinas who marry foreigners may have renounced their citizenship, if ever. Maybe, a Filipina who marries an American can have dual citizenship via a green card. Some countries accept dual citizenship. Other countries don't accept dual citizenship. If Vietnam and Russia send women to marry Chinese men, their women may have to renounce their citizenship to pledge allegiance to the Chinese state. Filipinas marrying. If this were true then why hasn't a single country where Filipinas have married into their people become a Filipino state?
I'm afraid that some Filipinas end up marrying foreigners out of desperation. Even worse, they may end up marrying foreigners who are either (1) poor people in their own country, (2) losers in their own country so they try to establish territory in the Philippines, (3) divorcees because they're not good spouses, and (4) sex perverts who want to take advantage of the Philippines. These are but a few examples I can think of and I think there are even more. I feel like some idiotic white men on Facebook who write nonsense ideals. These nonsense ideals are such as how they love Filipino culture because of stuff like impunity, that the Philippines should stay the same even if it remains dirt poor, and that protectionism is better than free trade may be up to something. I believe these are American sex perverts who want to take advantage of gullible Filipina women. This would be a bad thing in contrast to Filipinas who are married to foreigners out of love. Again, I love interracial marriages but only if it's a loving one.
What do I blame for this desperation? In contrast to what that annoying American I met on Facebook said, protectionism is really nothing more than stupidity. The same annoying American keeps ranting against Singapore as "everybody's favorite tyranny". The desperation comes from the results of economic protectionism. The late Carlos P. Garcia's Filipino First Policy only caused the Philippines to fail. Some people on Facebook even write, "The Philippines is not Taiwan, the Philippines is not Singapore, the Philippines is unique and must self-industrialize." Well, we've had more than 30 years of Filipino First, and did it really do any good? We can keep blaming government corruption for the lack of jobs yet why do Vietnam and China, both countries with a corruption problem, have better economies? I'm not going to say corruption is the cause of their prosperity. Rather, it's prosperity in spite of corruption. It's because China and Vietnam have both open economies. Both the late Deng Xiaoping and the late Nguyen Duy Cong followed the late Lee Kuan Yew's example.
I find it stupid how people on Facebook keep posting quotes by Lee about the late Ferdinand E. Marcos Sr. However, they never bothered to get the whole context, especially about the Philippines' OFW phenomenon. I also wrote about the destructive obsession with OFW remittances. Why can they quote Lee about the Marcoses but choose not to follow his economic advice? Lee had more to say about the Philippines in his book From Third World to First. Lee even said Filipinos need more discipline than democracy. How can the Philippines have more discipline if people are mostly having no jobs because of a lack of job opportunities? I can also say economic protectionism also encouraged the idea of, "Maybe the best way for a better life is to marry a foreigner." Not marry a foreigner out of love but out of need or a marriage of convenience.
Instead of aiming to marry foreigners to escape poverty, why not invite more FDI to invest in the Philippines? That way one can be sure that if they marry a foreigner, it's a foreigner who loves them. There are foreigners who marry foreigners from developed countries. You may find marriages between two developed countries. Inviting FDIs to own 100% equity of their business would help. It means that FDIs don't need to find a Filipino partner only to keep 40% of their net income after taxes. Instead, they keep their profits based on net income after taxes. They will grow their income while they need to pay necessary bills such as accounts payable, salaries, and taxes. They get rich based on net income after taxes. If there are more FDIs in the Philippines then you can expect more jobs. I also wrote about how FDIs can help develop the Philippine business environment. Sadly, my idea is still scoffed at by ignoramuses who'd rather believe in the likes of IBON Foundation (which I can't take seriously) or with simply, "Just trust me" or alternatively called "Trust me bro."