Maid in the Philippines

MANY years ago there was a movie titled “Maid in New York” which was about a domestic helper of Latin American origin who ended up marrying the boyfriend of her snooty boss. I am stealing the title of that movie at the risk of violating intellectual property regulations.

When I was in grade school, I would hear my mother and her friends lamenting the fact that it was difficult to find good, dependable household help, maids especially. They were probably the first batch of career women, a few were war widows like my mother, most of them reporters and page editors harassed by deadlines. They needed a support system, what Italians call focolare, to run the home while they were doing newspaper work.

Internal migration intensified after WWII. A lot of young women, girls in their teens, were sent by their families to work in Manila as yayas, lavanderas, or housemaids. Although most of them were honest and hardworking, they would have to go back to their provinces during harvest time, or would get lonely and ask for prolonged vacations. Many of them had never been exposed to urban life in a metropolis like Manila, so there was a lot of training to do, but the newshens (that is what they called lady journalists in those days) had neither the time nor patience for that. I would overhear a lot of complaints in that department: Juanita burnt the edge of a silk blouse, she didn’t tell me she couldn’t iron; I caught Anita flushing trash in the toilet bowl, horrors; Trining answered the phone and divulged my life story. Gone were the circumspect, faithful servants of their childhood who practically grew up by their side.

Aside from the diplomatic corps, there were still a lot of expats in those days. The majority were Americans who were advisers of various government agencies and consultants of private corporations. They came with wives and children and hired a lot of maids, houseboys, gardeners, and drivers. “They live like kings!” My mother and her friends used to say; the expat wives must have enjoyed having a retinue of servants, never mind those moments of intense cultural shock.

Perhaps the expats did not realize that they were ruining the domestic helpers market, or so it seemed because the newshens, after a few distasteful experiences, swore never to hire anyone who had worked for a white “amo.” Better a totally inexperienced “provinciana” than someone who had been “spoiled” by an American master. That they demanded higher salaries was not really the problem, it was their demeanor, that “air of superiority,” of officiousness that rubbed my mother and her peers the wrong way. And woe to the maid who insisted on speaking to them in broken English! Young as I was, I appointed myself the mayordoma of the house, for the sake of my mother’s sanity and for domestic peace. (She mourned the day I got married and moved to the Araneta household).

Sometimes, we sound like our mothers; I suppose it cannot be helped. My daughter, Fatimah, once told me that she hears herself telling her children the very same things she used to hear me say. Whenever my ex-classmates and I meet, we hear ourselves incessantly complaining about our domestic helpers, just like what our mothers used to do. However, there are a few fortunate ones who have found reliable industrious kasambahay who have stayed in their service for many decades. Some of us have had problems with promiscuity and outright dishonesty. In my case, I have only one, an ex-salesgirl of mine who was maltreated and abandoned by her husband. I have put her sons through school, paid for their rent and electricity, medical treatment, medicines, and other necessities.

We are horrified at the reports of how Filipina domestics are maltreated abroad, in the Middle East especially. They are beaten, starved, burned, insulted, raped, murdered, driven to suicide. There are shocking reports of one who was killed, shoved, and locked in a freezer for a year. Oftentimes, they are fooled by either recruiters or employers and are not paid what they were promised. It is ironic that they have to deprive their children of a mother’s love in order to earn enough to pay for their education and material needs. Unfortunately, not all husbands who stay behind remain faithful; many are profligate and perfidious; they do not take proper care of their children. Although the remittances of Filipino overseas workers have buoyed the national economy since the days of Marcos, the social cost of this type of employment strategy is taking a dreadfully heavy toll.

Can’t Filipino maids remain in the Philippines? Filipino youth need their mothers while they are growing up, but the latter have to seek their fortunes abroad, risk torture and death while raising the children of strangers, when they should be attending to their own. Moreover, there is a demand for good, efficient, hardworking, honest domestic helpers right here in the Philippines. It is about time for the Department of Labor and Employment to upgrade local salary scales, and for us employers to offer wages that will have a positive impact on their lives. Yet, there seem to be other reasons for taking the risk , for gambling one’s life in dangerous territories. What could it be? Adventure? Romance? You tell me.