The Philippines is one of the largest exporters of migrant workers in the world. Global shipping as well as the hospitality, medical, entertainment, domestic work and other sectors of many economies rely heavily on Filipino workers.
In this episode, Edward Vickers talks to Dr Mark Maca about his research into the relationship between education and the phenomenon of Filipino migrant labour. They discuss the significance of the educational and linguistic legacies of American colonial rule for creating the conditions in which it was possible for labour migration to ‘take off’ in the Philippines. The US colonial authorities established mass provision of basic education, leaving the mass of the Filipino population with at least a rudimentary command of English. At the same time, adoption of US educational models bequeathed a qualifications system that commanded widespread recognition abroad.
Although there was already a steady stream of Filipinos travelling overseas for work from the time of US rule, it was under the Presidency of Ferdinand Marcos (senior) in the 1970s that labour export began to be actively promoted and coordinated by the state. Mark explains how the decision of the Marcos regime to facilitate labour migration arose out of elite fears of economic and political crisis during the 1970s. Encouraging the export of labour was in part a means of creating a political ‘safety valve’, producing an outlet for the energy and ambition of young people frustrated by the economic sclerosis and pervasive clientelism of Filipino society. The movement overseas of many of the best and brightest young Filipinos has removed much of the threat they might otherwise have posed to the continued dominance of the established, feudalistic elites.
Mark’s research has shown how many aspects of the Philippines’ education system reflect or serve the interests of those elites. For example, the Philippines is rare among formerly colonised societies in using official media to praise the manifold ‘contributions’ of the country’s former colonisers (especially the USA) to its development. Textbooks, museums and other vehicles for public history make almost no attempt to deploy memories of colonial oppression to foster a sense of national unity. The positive evaluation of colonial rule is largely attributable to the collaborationist record of the dominant landowning elites, and their enduring closeness to the former colonisers.
As well as praising legacies of colonial rule, school curricula and public culture promote an image of migrant workers as patriotic ‘heroes’. In the contemporary Philippines, to love your country is to leave it! While this is an issue only touched on in this interview, it is discussed further by Mark in his published work.
Meanwhile, the 2023 election to the presidency of Ferdinand Marcos (junior), son of the autocrat who began the systematic promotion of labour export in the 1970s, testifies to the success of this strategy from the perspective of the feudalistic elite that continues to dominate society and politics in the Philippines.
Suggested readings:
Mark Maca (2017). ‘American colonial education policy and Filipino labour migration to the US’, Asia Pacific Journal of Education, 2017-07, Vol.37 (3), p.310-328.
Mark Maca and Paul Morris (2014). ‘Education, national identity and state formation in the modern Philippines’, in Edward Vickers and Krishna Kumar (eds), Constructing Modern Asian Citizenship. Abingdon: Routledge, 125-148.
Maca, M., & Morris, P. (2012). ‘The Philippines, the East Asian “developmental states” and education: a comparative analysis of why the Philippines failed to develop’. Compare: A Journal of Comparative and International Education, 42(3), 461–484. https://doi.org/10.1080/03057925.2011.652814
