Thoughts on a misguided attempt to celebrate Filipinos

‘Imagine a world without Filipinos’ is the heading of an unintentionally hilarious opinion piece in today’s Arab News. The writer claims the owner of Jeddah flower shop became handicapped after his Filipino workers insisted on leaving and returning home: “When they left, I felt as if I had lost my arms. I was so sad that I lost my appetite,” says the distraught owner, forgetting that losing the use of his arms would have made eating difficult anyway.

The piece goes on to extol the virtues of Filipino workers – though the credit seems to begin and end with the fact they speak good English and learn quickly. It manages to both patronize Filipinos and avoid criticizing the locals. If the Filipino Diaspora is to be celebrated is because Filipinos are prepared to travel to find work, accept pay and conditions that the locals wouldn’t accept, and, above all, work hard.

If the Arab News writer really wanted to shake things up, he might start a campaign to introduce a National Job Swap Day. Hopefully by then the Jeddah flower seller will have regained the use of his arms.