Reflection on the movie “ANAK”
Based on economic situation of the Philippines
They're known as ‘bagong bayani’, a Tagalog expression meaning "new heroes." As the movie, “Anak” suggests, these new heroes face loneliness of being far from their love ones, injustice and cruelty of foreigners, hardships of finding new job opportunities and the different negative treatment of Filipinos in their native country.
The main character in the story is a Filipina Overseas Contract Worker (Vilma Santos), one of the many residents of the archipelago who is forced to leave her family and take a higher paying job in a more prosperous Asian country- Hong Kong. While she is working her employer refuses to let her take a vacation, nor does he deliver her mail to her. She is unaware, therefore, that her husband has died. When she finally returns to the Philippines she is met with resentment and hatred by her children.
After six years of being a domestic Helper, Josie faced a lot of problems concerning her family. Carla (Claudine Barreto) exercised rebellion because of her anger towards her mom. Michael’s scholarship in a university has been forfeited after a low grade in an academic subject. And even Josie’s knowledge about her youngest daughter is very limited. She felt like she knows nothing about her family.
. Josie’s case happens to must Filipinos nowadays. It a worse thing facing hardships of finding new job opportunities abroad, but it’s a lot difficult facing family problems. These OFW’s actually suffer the cruelty of foreigners and most of them are treated differently as is they were slaves. But for the love of their families here in the Philippines, they are willing to sacrifice and face the challenges abroad.
Personally, I adore Josie in a lot of ways. She went to Hong Kong for the purpose of helping the family in its needs and not for any selfish reason. She went there and faced all hardships for the love of her children and husband, yet, when she came back, she still faced a more severe problem in the family. As a caring mother, seeing the family in a crisis is a big heartache and overcoming these feelings and rebuilding the same relationship is really hard to attain.
What has gone to the Philippines? Are we training Filipinos to work for the benefit of other counties? Flexible, industrious, and frequently skilled, Filipinos are finding their way into unexpected niche markets. Nurses trained in the Philippines, for instance, are more likely to end up working elsewhere. Hospital recruiters from Norway and the UK travel to Manila to hire them. Likewise, American school districts having trouble attracting new teachers are discovering ample supply in the Philippines. The Philippines truly has discovered the future of work. About 10 percent of the country's population of 76.5 million is hard at work - outside the country. During 2001, more than 800,000 people headed out to Italy, Saudi Arabia, Canada, Singapore, and Uzbekistan. They went to Mongolia and Equatorial Guinea. Unlike Mexicans, who flock primarily to the United States. Filipinos traveled to 162 nations in all. Filipinos toil as domestic helpers, engineers, nurses, bricklayers, teachers, farmers, seafarers, stenographers, hairdressers, crane operators, cooks, and entertainers.
Discovering its prowess as an outsourcer of labor, the Philippines is now pursuing the opportunity with fervor. Whereas the US has spent decades bemoaning the export of its jobs (to Mexico, to China), the Philippine government revels in the export of its people. Using technology to stay involved in family life back home, Filipino global commuters constitute one of the biggest sources of stability for the economy of a country perennially known as the Sick Man of Asia. Remittances, the money they electronically send back to their families, account for 8.2 percent of the nation's gross national product, stabilizing its peso, improving foreign currency reserves, shoring up consumption, and making more than a dent in the unemployment rate (now 11.8percent). Last year, overseas Filipino workers sent home $6.2 billion.
Filipinos actually gain a lot of benefits from these OFW’s. The thriving trade of people has already been the envy of the developing world. The growing market migrant work has attracted Asian countries to come and find out how they can have prime producers of labor from the Philippines. According to the International Monetary Fund, worldwide remittances totaled $2 billion in 1970; by 2000, the International Labor Organization set that figure at $73 billion.
Remittances are the best benefit that we gain from domestic helpers abroad. Truly, it accounts a big percent in improving the Philippine economy. But there are also other factors that can make it be improved. The balance of payments states the various aspects that a country must focus on, like the import and export, and also the investments. People are very essential in a developing country and therefore we should make use of them in the best possible way. We cannot afford to let other countries benefit from our workforce. Implementing new government rules to take care of these OFW’s are good, but its like accepting and relying on them predominantly, which I think is wrong.
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