What we (Filipinos) do for love...

The growing population of Filipinos in Sweden did themselves proud when they decided- through the heads of various organisations, to organise formally into a foundation which is now called Philippine Education Society or Filippinskt Utbildnings Sällskap. The project is a brainchild of the current Philippine Ambassador to Sweden, Mrs. Angara-Collinson.

Organising Filipinos in Sweden is not a novel experience. Since the celebration of the 100-year RP centennial in 1999, the number of Filipino-Swedish organisations have grown. A few, like Bayanihan headed by Edgar Gumabon in Helsingborg has been around for a much longer time. There has been an attempt to start a federation of Filipino-Swedish organisations in 1999, and it did get started but was burnt out after the second year. Federations are not always easy to manage if the member-organisations do not fully commit themselves to a common goal and shared purposes.

The Philippine Education Society, or PES, for short has one clear vision. It is to upgrade the professional status of Filipinos seeking job specifically in Sweden by helping them with language training in Swedish before they arrive in this country. This is the specific aim but the long-term vision is to upgrade the professional level and competence of Filipinos seeking work overseas.

It is lamentable that a majority of Filipino manpower export abroad crowd the service sector, which means roughly that most young Filipinos go abroad and work as housemaids and baby-sitters. Nevermind if the hardworking image of Filipino nannies is immortalised in films like "Mammoth", but the truth is that, we can do better with Filipino competence in other fields.

Looking at how China and the Chinese are crowding universities and colleges in Europe and the North America for advanced knowledge in edge-cutting technology fields, why are we settling for low-status work and sinking the general image of the country to that of exporter of cheap labour?

The Philipppine Education Society, PES, is just getting started and refining the procedures and strategies for achieving its goal will take more than a half-hearted voluntarism. It requires an engagement that comes from love, the love of one's birth country. Because even if we overseas Filipinos have long ago cut our placental ties with the Motherland, there is no way we are getting anywhere without looking back at our roots and our identity.