Interesting ABS-CBN news article regarding the most recent “hot” overseas occupation for Filipinos….

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Chefs join nurses, seafarers in RP ‘hot’ jobs list

MANILA - The Philippines, which for decades has supplied the world with a steady stream of seafarers, nurses, caregivers and domestic helpers, is now exporting practitioners of a cutting-edge trade: chefs.

“Chefs are the new rock stars now. Everyone wants to be a chef,” said Ian Padilla, a Filipino chef entre metier at Parisian restaurant Taillevent, a Michelin two-star establishment.

“When I started, there were hardly any culinary schools here … And there was no chef, it was just the cook. When I got back, there are culinary schools everywhere,” said Padilla, who came home recently to judge a cooking competition.

In 2000, there was just one culinary school in the Philippines. These days, there are about 400 cooking schools with scores more sprouting up every year across the Southeast Asian island nation.

The enthusiasm with which Filipinos are taking up cooking is not surprising. A global scarcity of cooks and chefs mean that culinary school graduates can earn as much as $4,000 per month working abroad.

That is an astronomical sum of money in a country where the average wage is 10,000 to 15,000 pesos ($214-$321) per month.

Some nine million Filipinos work abroad, often in menial jobs, sending home about $1 billion in remittances that keep the local economy afloat and support the local currency.

With jobless rates at over 7 percent and many hurting from high fuel and food prices, more Filipinos than ever before are seeking jobs abroad.

Nursing has been popular for a long time as Filipino nurses can earn around $1,000 to $4,000 a month working abroad, filling the gap in hospitals in the United States, Europe and the Middle East due to a global shortage of medical workers.

But becoming a nurse requires at least four years of college studies, while a prospective chef can get a culinary certificate in a month. A diploma course would take about 14 months.

The short waiting time for a culinary diploma or certificate sometimes comes with a steep price.

At Gandler’s International School for Culinary Arts and Hotel Management, tuition fees for a 14-month culinary diploma course costs 310,000 pesos ($6,675), not easily affordable for the average Filipino, many of whom become maids or sailors instead.

Still, enrolment remains high even at the five-year-old school formed by Austrian chef Norbert Gandler, who has run five-star hotel kitchens in the Philippines.

“In fact, we even have a waiting list,” Gandler said, adding his school is now at its full capacity of 280 students per year.

Cooking up a storm

The Philippines sent out almost 8,400 people to kitchens all over the world last year, two-thirds of whom were chefs and cooks. In 2000, just under 1,900 Filipinos left to work in kitchens abroad.

That figure is small compared to the number of Filipinos who work abroad as domestic workers and sailors. An estimated 50,000 Filipinos left the country last year to work as maids for the first time, while about 230,000 Filipinos worked as seafarers.

“Someday, I can be like those who went before me and become successful in working abroad,” said 21-year-old Fitz Gerald Carpio, one of several students who drew out kitchen knives to compete at the Manila culinary festival last week.

There is high demand for Filipino chefs abroad, partly due to their English proficiency, diligence, and good work attitude.

“England is now looking for 300 chefs, they go around to competitions like this,” Michaela Fenix Makabenta, food columnist and editor in chief of Food Magazine, told Reuters on the sidelines of the food competition last week.

“You can imagine, we are sending them out as soon as they graduate,” she said. “It is the easiest route to going abroad. Like Australia, there is a high priority for chefs. If you apply, you will be hired right away.”

Filipino chefs can be found on cruise liners and in hospitals and military camps in the Middle East. The lucky ones may find jobs in cordon bleu restaurants or in kitchens in the palaces of Middle East sheikhs.

“I’ve been to a lot of restaurants. There’s always a Filipino guy in a kitchen anywhere in the world,” said Richard Tan, a chef and instructor at the Magsaysay Institute of Hospitality & Culinary Arts. ($1 = 46.44 pesos)

I’m going to be attending this little concert at Rancho Cucamonga this Sunday (the daughter of one of my dad’s college classmates @ Ateneo is part of the main bill), so if you’re looking for something to do….let’s see how this goes.

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Event Details

Sister Act: A Joyful Festival of Song and Dances

Directed by Vic Perez

Sifting through the major Philippine news outlets today netted me the following article:

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Fil-Am Republican delegates: Palin’s values similar to Pinoys

By LENN ALMADIN-THORNBILL, ABS-CBN News North America Bureau | 09/04/2008 11:46 AM

ST. PAUL, Minnesota — As Republican delegates got ready to officially nominate John McCain and Sarah Palin as their presidential and vice-presidential candidates Wednesday night, Filipino-Americans who attended the convention were as excited and proud as everyone else.

Fil-Ams important to Obama campaign–supporter
By Veronica Uy
INQUIRER.net
First Posted 15:33:00 09/08/2008

MANILA, Philippines — The estimated four million Filipino-Americans are important to Democratic Party presidential nominee Senator Barack Obama because they are concentrated in the so-called swing states of Florida,
California, and Nevada, a supporter told INQUIRER.net Monday.

In an interview with Georgia McCauley, chairperson of the Democrats Abroad-Philippines who just returned to Manila after attending as a delegate to the Democratic
National Convention in Denver last week, thus called on all Filipino-Americans to vote for Obama.

Obama, McCauley said, understood the needs of Filipino-Americans in issues concerning immigration and Filipino veterans of World War II.

She pointed out that Obama, from Hawaii (which has a big Filipino-American population, particularly Ilocano) and who has spent a great deal of time in Indonesia, “has strong interest and understanding” of the concerns of Filipinos and Southeast Asians.

In Hawaii, McCauley said, Fil-Am Democratic members and volunteers “have been the backbone of our outreach campaign” — phone-banking, bringing food, and getting things done.

Asked about specific foreign policy toward the Philippines that might change with Obama as US President, McCauley said that while no specific policy initiative toward the country might be expected now when the campaign was still ongoing, an Obama presidency would expand foreign aid.

McCauley said Obama was for international support and coordination. And given that the Asian Development Bank is headquartered here, she said an Obama presidency should bode well for both the ADB and the Philippines.

McCauley has known Obama’s mother in Hawaii for more than 25 years.

And she vouched for the candidate’s being a “low-key, calm, and peaceful” father who “loves his girls.”

Asked why she thought Obama was so popular among Filipinos closely monitoring the US elections, McCauley said Filipinos loved him for being “positive, upbeat, and simple.”

“They are surprised and excited that this man who is not wealthy has taken on the most important leadership role in the world, a presidency that is transcending race. And islanders, the Filipinos in particular, understand that,” she said.

Asked how the choice of Alaska Governor Sarah Palin as vice presidential candidate of the Republican Party is going to affect the race, McCauley said statistics showed that vice presidents were not a deciding factor among the voters.

Some opinion makers said that Palin was taking some Democratic votes.

“I don’t find that she has depth of experience I am comfortable with. I would be surprised if the voters are comfortable with it too. Her policies and positions are diametrically opposed to the Democratic Party’s. [Palin as vice presidential candidate] is not something that we’re worried about,” McCauley said.

McCauley, who is asking the estimated 200,000 Americans in the Philippines to vote for Obama, also requested them to register for overseas voting at the www.votefromabroad.org.

She said the time it would take between the request for the ballot and the receipt of the ballot would be a short two weeks so she urged them to do so right away before the October 1 deadline.

Asked about Obama’s own lack of experience in governance, McCauley said: “I think they’re extremely misinformed. The experience a person gets is over a lifetime. [Obama] has been a community organizer who was able to register 100,000 voters.”

Palin has criticized Obama precisely for this. She said that while she might have been a mayor of a small town, she was some sort of a community organizer, but with responsibilities.

McCauley countered and said that the best gauge of experience would be “judgment, ability, and strength of character.” She said Obama was able to exercise these when he came out against the war on Iraq.

“What is more important than saving lives?” she asked, noting not only the sacrifice of Americans for Filipino-American lives, but those of Iraqis whose lives were either taken or disrupted over “slim evidence” that the country had weapons of mass destruction.

“The judgment factor supersedes all the other qualifications,” she stressed.

McCauley said Obama’s choice for vice president, Senator Joseph Biden, was another proof of his good judgment.

Biden, she said, was not only experienced in foreign policy, but was also in touch with small communities and everyday folks’ needs like “how life shifts depending on whether jobs or tax benefits are available.”

“Biden is an excellent complement to Obama. They make a superb team,” she said.

Early on in his career as state legislator, Obama, according to McCauley, has been point man for getting laws passed.

“He’s the one we go to get things done across party lines,” she said, quoting another Illinois state legislator. She called the inexperience label “an illusion and some fiction.”

McCauley also pointed to Obama’s experience working to better the status of low-income women and their families by improving the tax laws, and amending discriminatory death penalty laws.

Asked if the United States was ready for a black president, McCauley said Americans were “absolutely ready for a competent president.”

“We should quit wasting time on race and gender and focus on leadership. Race and gender don’t do anything to help anybody. We need to have competent leaders who have a vision, can engage people, can work together with people to make meaningful change,” she said.

She conceded that the Democratic Party would not be able to engage everyone.

“If they are not comfortable with [Barack being black], then that’s their problem. We need to move forward…We can’t stop because race and gender. That’s not how to make progress as a human race,” she said.

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I’m feeling that there will be more articles such as the ones above as we get closer to Election Day.  When something interesting comes online I’ll pass them on to you all.  And I don’t have to tell you to please be informed and VOTE this year, no matter where you are on the political compass.

One thing I will say though: There was an Obama booth at FPAC yesterday.

Here’s the other letter from my aunt’s blog that I said I’d share with you (albeit a couple days late - sorry).

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Dear Ms. Susan,

I read your article on Our Times of the Panorama dated May 18, 2008 and felt the need to share my experience with the call center industry. I hope this would interest you. I also hope this may enlighten the minds of those people of my age as to what they might possibly encounter when they join the call center industry.

I am now 52 years old turning 53 in July. I have a husband 14 years my senior and has 3 children ages 24, 18 and 16. My eldest, a girl, works with a call center company at the HR Department. She used to be call agent after graduating from college. My second child is a boy now in 3rd year college and my youngest, also a boy, will be 4th year high this school year. I am a college graduate, my last employment was with a prestigious bank as a secretary to a Senior Officer. I resigned in 1983.

Sometime in 2004, I decided I should take advantage of the “equal opportunities” the call center industry has been offering. I went to a Job Fair at the Malacanang grounds. I was called up and interviewed at home by one of the companies I submitted my resume to. I was scheduled for a test the following day in Makati and luckily I passed. I chose the Alabang site because it is near my place in Las Pinas.

I was hired on November 16, 2004 and signed a contract to receive P12,500 basic pay and P1,500 food and transportation allowance.

Having no idea what to expect in the industry and in dire need of money to help out financially, I started training. My co-trainees were the ages of my children except for one who was then 54 years old. I said to myself it’s alright, I am a good person, anyway. But on day one, I heard some guys talk out loud in the vernacular “why are those here (pointing at me and the other old trainee), aren’t they suppose to stay at home and take care of their grandchildren?” I said to myself I shouldn’t be so sensitive. Different personalities, I assured myself.

At the training, we were always asked to form into teams of 5 members. There, we will make a name for our team, draw and color the team name and list some things the trainor ask for. Kid’s stuff. We were provided with huge paper, crayolas, pen markers, and not enough space to work. EVERYONE SHOULD WORK. These young guys and girls take their positions, some work on the floor, others on the table. It was OK with me. I work on the floor, too. There were times that I think it was even fun. We had different kinds of games. But one game that made me make a second thought about working for this industry was the “spell the word with your ass”. I felt so humiliated for myself.

Not that these kids are really disrespectful, not all of them, though, but they just don’t have patience with older co-trainees. I had friends there, but the others were just spoiled brats who show disrespect. They laugh at you at times, and blame you to the face when you make mistakes. Everything we did was a teamwork. In between these games, we did the Trainings.

Some trainers, although I couldn’t blame them, are impatient. They are used to the pace of these young people. Having no computer classes in my time, I self studied at home with my kids as my coaches and trainers. I am not as efficient as them but I do well. And the active brains of these young kids are maybe a mile away from mine.

I passed the two trainings I undergone, the Communications and Culture Training and the Products and Services Training and was ready for the Transition period in Alabang where we have to take actual calls from customers in the US. But almost every morning when I ride the bus to go home, my tears fall. I silently cry in the bus. I felt so violated by some of my young co-trainees and my trainer who sometimes smashes my computer monitor just to show me where the answers to the drills were. And being embarrassed in front of the entire group of trainees is not new to me. I said to myself if not only for the need to work to earn money, I wouldn’t be feeling this way. I am sure my kids would not be doing such disrespect to elders. I never expected there were kids who were like this. I was never violated like this in my entire life. Despite, I was thankful I overcame the difficulties and passed the training.

At the transition period, there were other trainers. Even worst trainers. They shout at almost all of us. They command, they do not train! They always say they wouldn’t be getting as much as they are getting now if they did not experience the same before, so it’s our time to get the same dose of it. They even call the Transition period “hell week”.

Much as I would like to stay and go through, my blood pressure rose to 200 I could already feel my ears pulsating on my headset. They were rattling us, they were embarrassing us, they were practically shouting at us. One of my co-trainees who never smoke went out that night and smoked for the first time because he was put on a stand and was embarrassed and pressured all the way. Trainers always say they are getting us used to the irate customers and we have to be ready.

I did not finish the Transition Period. I asked my husband to fetch me from the company at 2:30am. I didn’t even want to look back at the building. I was shaking and crying on the way home. I told one of the trainers I had my blood pressure checked and it was over 200 so I had to go home.

I filed my resignation thru FAX on January 4. I was just one step away from taking calls on my own on the floor, in my booth, but PRESSURE forced me to resign.

I purposely did not include the name of the company where I trained. If you would want the name, I could be reached thru email and my cel no. More power to you and thank you.

ALIAS - MRS. Q

Recently my aunt wrote an article in the Philippine Panorama calling attention to the lives of Filipinos working at the call centers there. The call center industry is pretty big in the Philippines. I’m sure some of you have called customer support of some company and get an English-speaking Filipino on the other line.

In response to her article, some call center agents have written letters to her describing what they go through on a daily basis. Here’s one of them. I’ll show you another one tomorrow.

“…I wrote to tell you that I nearly cried when I read what you wrote last Sunday about the workers. I am a 28 years old call center quality analyst. Just like what you said I earn my keep daily. No work no pay. I would like to inform most of the people out there who are not aware of our situation. It is often assumed that we are earning very big and that’s it. But give me the chance to tell you our side of the story. We (from the call center industry) might be earning a little bigger than the usual. But since we work at night or U.S. office hours, we have to pay extra for our fare it’s either we take the cab or ride tricycles that charge extra fare at wee hours, or leave earlier so we can still catch the last trip of the MRT. Since we work at night our health is also at risk, we have to take extra vitamins or other health products to ensure our source of income.”

“We follow very strict rules which include our attendance and tardiness. Say we earn at least R500 to R800 a day less tax of not less than P2,000 every 10 to 15 days of pay minus our daily expenses and maintenance I assume we have a clean take home pay of at least R300. Not much compared to those who are from the different industry with lesser tax to pay.”

“Every time we celebrate a Philippine holiday we still have work we just get additional (not always double pay) pay. We are greatly affected every time the President would move the holiday to a Monday, because our shift starts at 9pm Monday. We are paid based on real time/Manila time so we get additional pay for only 3 hours instead of 8 hours. Say the Araw ng Kagitingan holiday was supposed to be celebrated Wednesday, the President moved it to Monday and we lost 5 hours of extra pay. Not only that, we can’t choose not to go to work because that could mean our job.”

“Since we work at night, the quality of our family time is also affected. Family time can never be paid by any amount. Unless you are born to a well-off family that can afford the luxuries in life, you just choose to work in the call center industry and make up with what ever you still can that is lost. We endure the hardship because we need the job, the food on the table, the medicine, shelter and education. For us, recreation is just a privilege and not a right anymore. We chose to stay here because we cannot leave our families behind or our skills and educational attainment are not enough. Despite these factors, we pay our taxes diligently though we cannot see the government’s effort to help us….”

Wow, I haven’t had this to eat for a very long time (since my family isn’t from the Ilocos region), but this makes want to try it again.

From the description that user bualaw08 posted on Youtube:

Dinengdeng Festival

This year, residents of Agoo will attempt a feat for the Guinness Book of World Records by presenting more than a hundred variations of their beloved Dinengdeng.

From a New Zealand news program….

So after going to P-Grad and a couple of graduation parties, I gather that there are quite a few TP actives/alums that are heading to the Philippines as early as tomorrow.

So this post is directed to you guys. You probably know a lot of this already, but perhaps you will find some of it useful.

Weather

If you’re leaving Tuesday night, you’ll probably get there on Thursday morning Manila time if you’re going straight. Based on this site, expect a high of 32 and a low of 24 with the usual scattered thunderstorms. (Yes, you’re gonna want to brush up on the metric system.) It’s going to be like that for a while. One of my co-workers just got back from the Philippines and she was complaining to me all day about how hot and humid it was over there, so prepare yourself.

Looking at this radar it looks like a storm recently passed by, but I don’t see any typhoons headed your way, so I think you’ll be ok on that front. If, God forbid, one hits during your stay, I hope you’re not in a low-lying area if it happens….

Money!

According to this site the Peso-Dollar rate is 42.8 PHP = 1.0 USD. A little higher than what I recall it being a couple of months ago, but far below the 50-55 range that it used to be.

Food and gas is getting more expensive in the Philippines, like everywhere else.

Travel warnings?!

The US Department of State still has this travel warning in effect for the Philippines, specifically southern Mindanao and the Sulu Archipelago. Watch yourself out there no matter where you are.

Current events?

Things are relatively calm right now. As you’ll see, every news program in the Philippines usually leads with a political story about some alleged act of corruption by the government, unless something big like a storm, a Pacquiao fight, etc. happens. But things are stable there, for now. Come 2010, that won’t be the case, but anyways….

Transportation

Hahaha….

They just raised the fares again for jeepneys and buses (they had to due to gas). If you haven’t ridden on a jeepney or tricycle, you really should. There’s nothing like riding shotgun on a tricycle through the provinical roads.

In Manila, well good luck. Traffic sucked when I was over there 4 years ago, and I can’t see it improving.

Recommendations?

Around Manila, there’s always the malls. Robinsons, Power Plant, Glorietta, Greenhills, Greenbelt, Megamall, Mall of Asia…they’re pretty much self-explanatory.

There’s also the Global City near Fort Bonifacio….4 years ago there were a couple of high-rises and a whole lot of nothing on that space….it must be totally different now.

Go to Bulacan if you have the chance. I’m a bit biased since that’s my home province, but it’s pretty much right next to Manila and it’s home to towns/cities of different characters. A couple of them include….

• Meycauayan - Home of the Sta. Cruz Family (my mom’s side). Tons of jewelry can be found here. I wonder if the river’s still black.
• Bocaue - The Fireworks Capital of the Philippines. You should see this place around New Year’s.
• San Miguel - In my opinion the best Pastillas de Leche comes from this town.
• Malolos - the capital of the 1st Philippine Republic. If you’re going here, you should go to Barasoain Church (where it all began).
• Hagonoy - Last, but not least. Home of the Ople Family (my dad’s side). To me it’s an ideal place. Not too far away from the craziness that is Manila, but far enough. Lots and lots of fish around here.

Other than that…Tagaytay’s pretty nice when I was last there. Go see the Taal Volcano while you’re at it. Baguio’s nice too if you’re OK with a long ride. Then, of course, Boracay. You’re all pretty much going there so there’s no need to describe it here.

In conclusion, have fun, and stay safe. If you feel the need to blog about your experience, let me know. - R

A recent conversation I had with my father (where, among other things, he recalled how he went to two packed Commodores gigs at Araneta Coliseum back in the 60s) led me to do a bit of research about an event I really didn’t know much about until now.

The event I speak of is the Beatles in 1966 playing 2 large concerts in Manila and then getting booed and harassed out of the Philippines.

So how can such a thing happen?

According to this site, on 7/4/66 the Beatles played two concerts at Rizal Memorial Football Coliseum with a combined attendance of 80,000. (They played while Ferdinand and Imelda Marcos were in power; however, this was before martial law was declared in 1972.) Before these 2 concerts…

“a lunch was set at Malacañang Palace at 11 a.m. with 300 children waiting to see The Beatles. An hour before the party, a delegation came to the Manila Hotel to collect The Beatles. Brian Epstein, The Beatles’ manager, declined the invitation on the grounds that no earlier arrangement had been made and The Beatles were still in bed.

The day’s scheduled concerts, however, later proceeded successfully. In between concerts, local televisions reported the alleged “snub” showing footages of children, some crying, disappointed by The Beatles. Epstein watched in horror and went immediately to the television studio to apologize and set the facts straight. But barely had he started reading his press statement when the transmission blipped.

Newspapers carried the headline, “Beatles Snub President.” The following morning was the scheduled departure of The Beatles to New Delhi. Suddenly, The Beatles and their entourage realized they were practically on their own without any help: Room and transportation services were withdrawn. In the airport, the whole Beatles entourage was manhandled as it made its way to the plane.”

The Beatles eventually got to New Delhi, but they did not appreciate how they were pretty much booed off the Philippines. Someone put up on Youtube parts of a Beatles interview where they describe how they were treated and vow never to go there again (a vow which they kept).

One can also see in the above clip a small glimpse of what the Philippines was like in the Marcos years before martial law.

First came across this from my cousin Kuya Carlo’s blog, “Only in the Philippines!”

Yep, the man below promoting Tide detergent is running for President in 2010. Very clever if you ask me.