The Philippine Online Chronicles

For decades, the OFW route was taken mostly by Pinoys of the lower and lower-middle class.  They venture abroad, not merely for "better opportunities" but for sheer survival.  Over the last decade and in the past few years, however, the popular connotation of "OFW" has undergone a subtle change.  While it traditionally and popularly referred to nurses and caregivers in North America, domestic helpers in Hong Kong, and laborers in Saudi Arabia, it now also popularly refers to advertising executives in Vietnam  and Cambodia, graphic artists and animators in Singapore, and sales executives in Dubai. These are the men and women who previously embodied the entity known as the "Pinoy Yuppie;" now relocated and thus rechristened as "OFW."

The Yuppie - as defined and personified in the 80s and 90s -- is now a dying breed here in the Philippines.  Sure, we technically still have hoards of "young professionals" in the country, but the shirt-and-tie-with-briefcase Makati yuppie has now been supplanted by the hoodie-and-skinny-jeans-with-iPod Makati call center agent.  This has now become the only viable option left for the average college graduate -- to answer or place calls to westerners who would be paid more for doing their jobs, only they don't want their jobs.

In the Philippines, there also happens to be a lot of young educated Pinoys who don't want these jobs.  Their solution: to look for old-school Pinoy yuppie jobs outside the country.  Now we have come to the point of the OFW's evolution where it's no longer just a popular lower-class necessity, but also a popular middle-class choice.  The Pinoy Yuppie isn't dead:  it's just working abroad.

The Yuppie "Saudi"

For many of these young professionals, Singapore has become the new "Saudi." Since the Hong Kong handover to China, many multinational companies have moved their regional offices to Singapore, making it the country of choice for many Pinoy yuppies looking for better work.

"I decided to work in Singapore when I realized that, after working for almost five years in my previous company, my salary was still not enough to be able to save up for my future," says Rachel Tan, a 25-year-old Project Manager for a Singapore-based multinational design company.   "Before I decided to move here to work, I tried other possible solutions such as having a part-time job and even trying to join some small businesses."

Singapore has proven to be a more lucrative option for young professionals. "The pay here is substantially higher, plus they have a lower annual tax,"  shares Flor Era-Lao, a 30-year-old graphic artist working in Singapore. "Another reason I chose to work here was the easy access.  It's only a three-hour flight to the Philippines and the airfare is not as high compared with other countries."

These facts are not lost on our young, degree-holding workforce.  Over the last three years, Singapore has alrady overtaken Hong Kong as the Asian city with the most number of OFWS.  As of 2010, Pinoy workers in Singapore account for 5.9 per cent of the worldwide OFW population.  As Singapore becomes more of an OFW hotspot, ironically, the tougher it has been for Pinoys to find work there.

Rachel found work in Singapore in early 2011 after merely two weeks of job-hunting.  Rcently, though, she has become more of the exception than the norm.  "A lot of my friends have come here to find work too, but some of them are having a hard time because of the competition as well as the restrictions on foreign workers," she says.  "Kahit kapwa mo Pinoy kaagaw mo rin sa work dito kasi ang dami na talagang Pinoy dito na naghahanap ng work."

The middle class dream

With the current state of affairs, it is easy to conclude that our middle class is slowly being driven away by an economy that continues to squeeze down the social order.  But for some young professionals, leaving the country is not always a financially-driven choice.

"In my previous job, i felt trapped inside a room complete with everything," says Harris Guevarra, a 28-year-old Pinoy entrepreneur and poet.  "There was no need to look at the future, there was no need for dreaming, everything was around me, food, shelter and paralyzing comfort.  I thought of leaving the country for more of life -- its glamor and richness, its pain and sadness."

When Harris accepted work as Creative Director in an advertising agency in Kuwait, not only was he embracing a larger salary and a huge promotion, he was also embracing somethng rare within the confines of middle-class existence -- the thrill of change.  "It was the promise of new things, places and faces.  The silence I needed.  I had no friends there, the people spoke a different language, the culture miles away from what I'm used to.  I was a stranger for the first time in my life, and was so exicted to be alone and have a fresh start."

This, perhaps, more than pure economics, is the biggest driving force for the Yuppie Diaspora: the promise of a "new world." "Lahat dito convenient, easy and fast," Rachel says of Singapore. "You wouldn't worry about being late dahil traffic, o ang haba ng pila kapag magde-deposit ka ng pera o pipila ka to buy an MRT ticket.  Parang lahat dito mabilis at maginhawa."

Mailyn de Jesus, a 33-year-old former research executive who now works in Auckland, New Zealand, also found her life in the Philippines unsatisfying.  "Honestly, I was bored with my life back home," she says.  "New Zealand has offered me experiences I know I would never have, had I stayed in Pinas.  My life is pretty much similar but now I'm in a better environment, better weather. I have more colorful friends, as in literally, because they have different skin colors," she quips.

Job-hunting, soul-searching

While single young people of other cultures normally live independently away from home, our young professionals are expected to live under the care of their parents until they get married.  It is a social expectation born out of our close family ties, the same ties that makes OFWs one of the loneliest people in the world.  "Yung lungkot, 'yun lang naman kalaban mo dito eh," confides Rachel. "Kasi namimiss mo family mo at yung friends mo."

But if the single young Pinoy is a fish out of water overseas, away from home is also the place where they grow up.  "The best thing about working here is being away from the familiar and being self-sufficient," Mailyn says. "I learned to be independent -- financially, emotionally, basically in every way."

"Kailangan mas responsable ka sa pagbadyet ng sweldo," relates Flor.  "Dahil magbabayad ng kuryente, renta sa bahay, at iba pang bills, lalo na karamihan ng mga kumpanya dito (sa Singapore) ang sweldo ay every month unlike sa Pinas 15 and 30 of the month."

Flor would eventually learn more about responsibility especially after finding love and getting married to a fellow OFW in Singapore.  "It's exciting but at the same time also a struggle," she relates. "Every time something happens, wala kaming ibang maasahan kundi ang isa't isa, dahil malayo kami sa pamilya."

Like Mailyn and Flor, many young Pinoys continue to find a new and better life outside the country.  But for others, like Harris, who worked overseas in a quest for self-discovery, the answers aren't always found abroad.  "Working abroad used to be my dream," he says. "But all of a sudden when you're already there, you realize that this was not the kind of life you wanted."

Harris did find the transformation he wanted -- and it pointed him back home.  "I wanted to be alone and when I was already alone, I didn't want to be alone anymore.  It took me a hundred thousand pesos and a 15-hour plane ride to learn my life's most important lesson: Be like a warrior, set goals and strategies and win the war." He went back to the Philippines and worked as Creative Director for an advertising agency before setting up his own.  Today, he is he COO of his own web company, Pinoymed.com.

'You don't need to go far to know yourself more, what you want, what you care for," he muses. "In fact, you don't need to ask that question at all.  A human person changes everyday, his wants and desires, even his entire life can change in seconds.  But you have to stay still and focus like a fighter. Quit if you want to, or continue, it's up to you.  It's part of growing up perhaps ... of growing old."

OFWs by blood

I am the son of an OFW. My father worked as Chief Engineer for the Beijing Palace Hotel (now Beijing Peninsula) and the Grand Lijiang Hotel in China; and later for the Hanoi Horison Hotel in Vietnam.  My childhood memories of him involved waiting at the airport, seeing him arrive before taking us to Duty Free, seeing him pack and leave, only to wait for him again in the airport months or years later. This constant cycle of arrival and departure, his constant absence, made my middle-class existence possible.

I detest the term "yuppie," but since I'm technically still young and relatively upwardly mobile, I suppose I am one.  Like many single, middle-class professional Pinoys, I also deal with regular bouts of anxiety -- whether financial or existential.  Like many single, middle-class professional Pinoys, leaving the country to find work abroad has crossed my mind many times.  I never did and I don't think I ever will.  But I could be wrong because I will always hear stories like Rachel's or Flor's or Mailyn's or Harris' and I will always confront the questions they wrestled with, the thirst that brought them where they are now.  This will always be the case for me, for all Pinoys of all classes and backgrounds because to question one's place, to yearn for something "better," whatever that still means, is as Pinoy an instinct as there is.

I am Pinoy and always will be, no matter where I may end up in.