CHAPTER II

REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE

Overseas Filipino Workers

Because of poverty and lack of job opportunities in the Philippines, many

Filipinos choose to work abroad in various professions in order to provide for their

respective families and to be able to pursue better living (Cruz, 2012). They are the

country’s overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) and are dubbed as “mga bagong

bayani” or “modern-day heroes” because (i) they have to work abroad away from

their loved ones for the sake of greener pastures, enduring the pain and loneliness

brought about by their situation, and (ii) they help greatly in the development of the

Philippine economy through their remittances (Briones, 2017; van der Ham et al.,

2014). In 2012, for example, the Philippines received a total of US$24 billion in

remittances from overseas Filipino workers (World Bank, 2014) while in 2018, the

total remittance of OFWs was PHP236 billion (Philippine Statistics Authority). Such

amounts of remittances are expected to significantly boost economic growth and

stability.

Although working abroad generally provides relatively higher salaries than

working in the Philippines, it proves to be not an easy task. On top of the loneliness

and pain of being far from loved ones, OFWs also need to worry about dealing with

different cultures and the possibility of being in grave danger. However, despite the

said challenges, many Filipinos still choose to work abroad. The Philippine Overseas

and Employment Administration (POEA) 2006 data show that there were more than

one million OFWs in the said year while Philippine Statistics Authority’s (PSA) “2018

12
Survey on Overseas Filipinos” shows that there were about 2.3 million OFWs in

2018. The said data show an increase of approximately 46% in the number of

OFWs. Additional POEA data show a general increase in the number of new hires

and rehires since 2006 (Table 1), i.e. more overseas Filipino workers decide to work

abroad each year and more Filipinos who had already worked abroad choose to

either renew their contracts or reapply abroad than stay in the country for good. The

increase in the number of OFW rehires and new hires, despite the challenges they

could face abroad, could indicate a significant development of resilience in OFWs,

something that could have resulted from the way they cope with the various

situations they were in.

Table 1. OFW new hires and rehires from 2006 to 2017 (POEA Overseas Employment
Statistics).
Year New Hires Rehires Total
(Landbased + Seabased)
2006 317,680 470,390 1,062,567
2007 313,260 497,810 1,077,623
2008 376,973 597,426 1,236,013
2009 349,715 742,447 1,422,586
2010 341,966 781,710 1,470,826
2011 437,720 881,007 1,687,831
2012 458,575 976,591 1,802,031
2013 464,888 1,004,291 1,836,345
2014 487,176 943,666 1,832,668
2015 515,217 922,658 1,844,406
2016 582,816 1,086,695 2,112,331
2017 419,955 1,194,719 1,992,746

Filipino Domestic Helpers and the Challenges in the Domestic Labor Sector

Locally and Abroad

A significant number of OFWs are domestic helpers by profession. Domestic

helpers or workers are those whose work mainly involve household duties such as

house cleaning, cooking, providing care to the elderly and children, among many

13
other tasks (Galloti, 2016; International Labor Organization, ILO, 2013). Such tasks

of domestic helpers allow their respective employers to go out in the mainstream

workforce, have higher-skilled jobs and/or achieve their desired lifestyles (Luebker,

2013). Furthermore, domestic jobs employ approximately 52 million workers,

accounting for approximately 3.6% of all salaried works worldwide (ILO, 2011).

Therefore, domestic workers worldwide play a crucial role in the well-being of almost

every country’s economy and society (United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and

the Empowerment of Women, UNEGEEW, 2013).

Although mostly are well-educated with high school diplomas or college

degrees (Battistella and Asis, 2011), Filipino domestic helpers usually come from

poor families (Ducanes and Abella, 2008). Therefore, despite having proper

education, many Filipino domestic helpers are driven by poverty and lesser

opportunities of finding more stable and well-paying jobs in the country to migrate

and work abroad, since many consider the migration as the best chance to uplift

their social and economic status (Cruz, 2012). Poverty seems to be strongly linked

to migration and domestic work. In the Philippines, for example, many domestic

helpers who work for well-off families in major Philippine cities come from distant

provinces or rural areas and migrate to said cities for possibilities of social and

economic growth through domestic work (de Guzman, 2014). Considering that about

28% of the Philippine population are poor (National Statistical Coordination Board,

2013) and about 80% of the poor population in the Philippines come from the rural

areas (Rural Poverty Portal, RPP, 2013), the possible connection between the

abovementioned factors is clearly shown.

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 Domestic Violations, Abuses, and Exploitations. Because of the private nature

of domestic labor in employers’ households, domestic helpers, particularly women,

belong to those most prone to employer abuse, exploitation and, in some cases,

forced labor and trafficking, among other related dangers. A famous case is that of

the late Flor Contemplacion, a Filipino domestic helper in Singapore who was

sentenced to death for the alleged murder of a young boy and another Filipino

domestic helper Delia Maga. According to Hilsdon (2003), Contemplacion was a

poor married woman with four children who left the Philippines in 1987 to work in

Singapore as a domestic helper. She was accused in 1991 of the said murders, was

arrested, confessed to the murders, was charged, and was later imprisoned for trial

by the high court. She was later found guilty and was sentenced to death. Hilsdon’s

research, however, found two conflicting versions of the case as far as Singaporean

and Philippine media are concerned. Singaporean media stated that Contemplacion,

thought to be deranged during the time of her visit to Maga, murdered Maga and

Huang, the young boy Maga was looking after, when Maga refused to take

Contemplacion’s gifts for her family in the Philippines (Maga was already scheduled

for vacation). The Philippine media, on the other hand, provided that during the visit,

Huang drowned in the bathroom due to an epileptic attack. Maga informed her

employer of his son’s death and sent Contemplacion home. Out of rage from his

son’s death, Maga’s employer beat and strangled her to death. According to this

version of the Contemplacion case, after being drugged and electrocuted,

Contemplacion was forced to confess to the murders without a lawyer present.

Efforts were made to save her from the death sentence, and she tried to retract her

15
previous confession, but none of the efforts bore fruit. The Philippine media version

further stated that she was executed by hanging in May 1995, with the Singaporean

prison officials not allowing her and her family have a final embrace before the

execution.

A number of other abuse cases of overseas Filipino domestic helpers were

reported in the past years. Two significant cases are those of Joanna Demafelis

(BBC News, 2018; CNN Philippines, 2019) and Jeanelyn Villavende (CNN

Philippines, 2020; PhilStar, 2020) who were both domestic helpers in Kuwait that

were abused and murdered by their employers. Such cases forced the Philippine

government to issue a temporary total deployment ban of OFWs to the said country

until the 2018 agreement between the two countries “is fully implemented and the

terms contained herein are incorporated in every labor contract” of Filipino workers

that will work in the country; it is worthy to note that the said 2018 agreement is a

result of the 2018 implementation of a total deployment ban of OFWs to the same

country due to the death of Demafelis (GMA News, 2020). Consequently, another

agreement based on the 2018 agreement on Filipino workers’ rights, with revisions

or improvements, was signed by the Philippine and Kuwaiti governments which

leads to the lifting of the said deployment ban (GMA News, 2020).

The presented cases are proof of the dangers domestic helpers could face.

The private nature of domestic labor allows for inadequate safeguarding of the

domestic helpers’ rights by either the host country or the country who provides the

labor force (Hilsdon, 2000). In addition, this private nature of domestic labor could

lead to concealed forms of abuse such as psychological, physical, and sexual

16
abuse, which could include humiliation, insults, and beatings. Either locally or

abroad, it would be difficult to ensure the safety of those in the domestic labor sector

(Stasilius and Bakan, 1997; ILO, 2013). The study conducted by Cheung et al.

(2019), for example, confirms that Filipino domestic helpers in Hong Kong

experience physical and verbal abuse, majority of their offenders being female

employers and children. The results of the study further suggest that such abuses

are unreported or reported to informal parties and are related to depression levels in

domestic helpers. Another study conducted by Acosta and Acosta (2013) show the

same trend in a number of Filipino domestic helpers in Qatar. Their study found out

that Filipino domestic workers in Qatar experience abuses in three forms, namely

corruptive, confrontive and coercive abuses. The study further concluded that such

abuses lead to effectual and affectual damage which are directly visible and have

effects that last long, respectively. Even in the Philippines, a number of domestic

helpers still experience violations and abuse in various forms: no written contract,

violation of contract terms, long working hours, non-payment or late payment of

wages, verbal, physical and sexual abuse, worst forms of child labor, etc. (ILO,

2013).

Distant Parenting and Family Roles. On top of the possible violations, abuse

and exploitation Filipino domestic helpers could face, they also need to take into

account other factors. One of which is their role as parents to the children they left

behind and the emotional cost of such situation. This is particularly true even for

those who are working within the Philippines only. Such reality is reflected by the

results of the research study conducted by de Guzman (2014) in the Philippines.

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The study gathered from its respondents that for domestic workers who are mothers,

being separated from their children has an extremely high emotional cost and is

practically agonizing. A 19-year-old respondent of the study who needed to leave

her few-months-old baby in the care of her husband and mother-in-law to work as a

domestic helper for a well-off family in the Philippines shared:

“When I miss my child, I just cry about it. When I was just 5 days into the job,
the whole day, I was just crying. My boss was wondering why my eyes were so
swollen. You see, when I was about to leave, we were just discussing it (with
family)—as if it would be nothing and I wouldn’t feel anything. But when I got on
the motorcycle that would take me to the (bus) terminal, I started crying. I
wanted to get off. Until I got to the terminal and the whole time on the bus, I was
crying. But I had crossed the water (on the ferry) and I could not turn back. And
when I arrived . . . I kept thinking, “at this time, he’s doing this . . .” You see, he
was closer to me (than the father). When I was still home, he would only go to
his father when he had something for him. I just left him some of my unwashed
clothes so he could hug that. It is hard to be a yaya, it is hard to be a mother.”

The results of the study further show that this dilemma of domestic helpers

could be true regardless of age. Another respondent of the study, a 40-year-old lady

who left his newly born son in the care of her brother after birth, shared:

“When I left the hospital, my brother was already waiting outside and I had to
hand him the baby. I rode the bus to here because a job was waiting for me. It
was odd, I felt like I was floating the whole time, like my feet were not touching
the ground. For a month, I didn’t even realize I was crying—while sweeping the
floor, while eating....”

The respondents of de Guzman’s study further shared that the emotional

burden of being far from their children led them to question the decision they made.

The 19-year-old respondent, for example, further shared that when she sees

beggars on the streets, she would think that they are lucky because even though

18
they are poor, they are together at least. This would make her think that she should

quit her job and go back to her family; they could starve, but they would starve

together. This statement reflects the relatively difficult choice our domestic helpers

constantly face, either to be together with their loved ones or to survive. Such reality

is also reflected by the results of Loyola and de los Santos’ (2020) study. The

researchers concluded that Filipino workers in Singapore, including domestic

workers, are eager to return home to their loved ones but choose not to because of

the many uncertainties if they return home.

In many cases, domestic helpers and the families they left behind adapt to or

cope up with the situation they are in, developing family resilience in the process.

This is reflected in the study conducted by Garabiles, Ofreneo, and Hall (2017) that

aims to formulate a model of resilience for families of foreign Filipino domestic

helpers. According to the research, successful adaptation to being separated is

achieved by the families after undergoing five relational processes: (1) “families

communicate across space using technology to bridge relational distance”, (2)

“families restructure across space through role sharing and the validation of each

other's efforts in their family roles”, (3) “families rebuild ties through temporary family

reunification that bridge physical and relational distance”, (4) “families have the

collective goal of permanent family reunification by ending migration to become

complete again”, and (5) “they strive to commit to their families by prioritizing them

instead of succumbing to difficulties”. Such relational processes suggest that the

development of family resilience is a collectivistic method, achieved only through the

efforts exerted by each of the family members.

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 Cultural Diversity. Another factor that Filipino domestic helpers need to take

into account is the differences in culture. If, in the Philippines, culture is already

highly diverse between provinces and cities, one can safely expect high cultural

diversity if someone were in a different country. Since domestic workers are those

that live within the homes of their respective employers, one can also safely assume

that domestic workers are the ones that have to deal mostly with such cultural

differences. According to the analysis conducted by ILO (2013), foreign domestic

helpers mostly are from ethnic groups different from those of their employers, with

different cultural practices and religious beliefs, among others. Such factors,

according to the ILO analysis, significantly affect the attitudes of employers towards

their domestic helpers, often leading to discriminatory actions, abuses, and

violations.

Despite the challenges domestic helpers have to face and deal with, data

from Philippine government agencies are showing a generally increasing number of

Filipinos who choose to work as domestic workers. The 2010 POEA data, for

example, show that 96,583 out of the 340,279 newly hired OFWs are domestic

helpers. This is about 28% of the total number of newly hired OFWs in that year. For

comparison, the next largest group of newly hired OFWs in the same year consisted

of “production and related workers (NEC)”; there were just 27,152 of them, which is

only about 7% of the total number of newly hired OFWs, as compared to the number

of domestic helpers. In addition, the PSA “2018 Survey on Overseas Filipinos” data

show that about 37% of OFWs in the said year are those with elementary

occupations, to which category domestic labor belongs.

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Resilience: Definitions and Theories

The relatively high numbers of Filipinos still venturing into the domestic labor,

both rehires and new hires, despite the challenges and dangers that could be faced

by such workers is an indicator of realities such as still unresolved problems on

poverty and unemployment. On top of the mentioned realities, another interesting

possibility indicated by this trend in the increasing number of foreign Filipino

domestic helpers is the development of resilience in these workers.

Resilience, in layman’s terms, is the ability of a person to bounce back from

adverse situations. This is known to Filipinos as “katatagan”. The American

Psychological Association (2014) defines resilience as “the process of adapting well

in the face of adversity, trauma, tragedy, threats, or even significant sources of

stress”. Resilience itself could change over time with respect to development and the

interaction of an individual with his/her environment (Kim-Cohen and Turkewitz,

2012). Therefore, contexts of interpersonal interactions, available resources such as

technological tools, specific cultures and religions, organizations, communities and

societies significantly affect an individual’s response to stress and trauma (Sherrieb,

Norris, and Galea, 2010; Walsh, 2006).

Filipinos are resilient people (Tan, 2006; Rilveria, 2018; Nerosa, 2019). This

has been proven in many previous events, so several studies and analyses sought

to understand this resiliency. Ladrido-Ignacio and Perlas (1995), for example,

identified certain ways, both healthy and unhealthy, in which Filipinos cope with

various difficult situations. The researchers observed that spirituality is the most

frequent way of coping among Filipinos, in which case Filipinos turn to religion and

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faith in accepting the adverse situation they are in. Bayanihan or camaraderie is also

a well-known and well-observed coping behavior among Filipinos, in which case

people help each other, a community-based coping mechanism. On the other hand,

Wilkinson (2015) also recognized the significance of faith as a way of coping among

Filipinos and concluded that faith plays a vital role in the development of personal,

family, and community resilience in them, adding that prayerfulness of Filipinos

demonstrates the fact that prayer is part of the process that develops resilience at

the personal level, which is then shared to the family and the community.

On the other hand, Bankoff’s (2007) analysis, which sought to understand

resilience of Filipinos with respect to personal, social and environmental adversities,

traced the origins and evolution of such resilience. According to the research, the

origins of community resilience of Filipinos can be traced back as early as at around

1594 to cofradias, which are religious fraternities that not only help Filipinos with

their spiritual health and well-being but also provided material assistance and labor

and financial aid to those who were unfortunate. The research further provided that

the Filipino tradition of achieving community or shared resilience through helping

one another was further developed or evolved in the later events such as wars and

famines that devastated parts of the Philippines throughout the years.

Indeed, community or shared resilience is quite common among Filipinos,

wherein the family is the first “community” that helps during unpleasant situations. As

Ladrido-Ignacio and Perlas (1995) also observed, Filipinos tend to seek emotional,

physical and financial support from their respective families during times of crisis.

Family seems to be the most significant community that Filipinos lean on.

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 The Family Adjustment and Adaptation Response or FAAR model is a family

resilience model developed by Patterson (1988) that describes the ways in which

families balance demands and their capabilities when they are in difficult situations

(Fletcher and Sarkar, 2013; Lin et al., 2016; Chanda and Alkon, 2018). Apparently,

the model was developed to understand how families cope with adverse situations

and, in the process, develop family resilience. According to Lin et al. (2016), the

FAAR model focuses on four central concepts: family demands, family capabilities,

family meanings, and family adaptation. The model suggests that when confronted

with difficult situations or demands, the family will utilize its capabilities to meet such

demands and try to achieve equilibrium. However, if the family’s capabilities are not

enough, a crisis will occur and the family will have to constantly adjust and adapt

themselves until an equilibrium is maintained. The model’s principles must be

applicable to Filipino domestic helpers and their families. For example, poverty and

inadequate opportunities on stable and well-paying jobs is a major concern of poor

Filipino families. To address such problem, Filipino families adapt by allowing some

family members to work as domestic helpers abroad where there is greener pasture.

However, working far from home could generate additional problems and the family,

including the domestic helpers themselves, must continue to adapt and adjust until

an equilibrium is achieved. This is also reflected in the study of Garabiles, Ofreneo,

and Hall (2017), which propose that family resilience can be achieved when five

relational processes on family adaptation and adjustment are satisfied.

However, even though family resilience can be easily achieved when

members of the family work well to achieve it, the situations of individual domestic

23
helpers must still be treated differently. For instance, family members left behind by

domestic helpers are in each other’s company, making it relatively easier to adapt

and adjust to adverse situations, whereas the domestic helpers themselves do not

enjoy such family company. They, therefore, need to adapt and adjust to other

adverse situations related to their work that their respective families back home may

not know about. One could possibly safely assume that family resilience is just a

factor that help individual domestic helpers achieve resilience at the personal level.

Therefore, the notion of resilience development in overseas Filipino domestic

helpers at the personal level is interesting and worthy of note.

Leipold and Greve (2009), through their Integrative Model of Coping,

Resilience, and Development, recognized individual resilience and proposed that

resilience is a result of an individual’s significant coping processes which are

affected by personal and situational conditions. The researchers further proposed

that resilience of individuals is a significant part of the conceptual bridge between

coping and development. This should be noteworthy as the model proposes that

resilience of individuals facilitates personal development after successful coping or

adaptation.

Taormina (2015) highlighted resilience at the personal level through his Adult

Personal Resilience theory, which aimed to understand and focus on resilience at

the personal level while excluding external factors or influences. Taormina further

pointed out that since most resilience models focused on children, his model focuses

on adults instead because resilience is constantly tested and developed throughout

an individual’s lifetime, thus making studies on adult resilience equally necessary.

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Taormina further discussed that adult personal resilience, aside from being internal,

is a multidimensional construct, with the dimensions being “determination”,

“endurance”, “adaptability”, and “recuperability”. These dimensions refer to personal

characteristics or traits of an individual that determine the individual’s capacity for

resilience development. Taormina defines determination as “the willpower and

firmness of purpose that a person has and the decision to persevere and/or to

succeed”. This dimension is the cognitive or conscious dimension (refer to an

individual’s mindset) of personal resilience. Endurance, on the other hand, is defined

as “the personal strength and fortitude that one possesses to withstand unpleasant

or difficult situations without giving up”, which could be both a cognitive and physical

dimension of personal resilience. Taormina defines adaptability as “the capacity to

be flexible and resourceful, and to cope with adverse environments and adjust

oneself to fit into changing conditions”. This dimension is put to test when, for

example, a person decides to live in a different country with a different culture,

wherein its people have different values, beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors. Lastly,

Taormina defines recuperability as “the ability to recover, physically and cognitively,

from various types of harm, setbacks, or difficulties in order to return to and

reestablish one’s usual condition”. Whereas “recovery” is viewed as an outcome,

recuperability is a characteristic of personal resilience that facilitates the recovery of

individuals.

Synthesis

The literature on overseas Filipino domestic helpers provide that while

working abroad, these workers could face domestic violations, abuses and

25
exploitation on top of the challenges that they have to deal with such as distant

parenting and other family roles and cultural diversity. In addition, the literature

shows that the migration of Filipino domestic helpers is closely linked to poverty:

presented research studies suggest that poverty and inadequate opportunities on

stable and well-paying jobs in the country are some of the driving factors that

influence the decision of many Filipinos to still work abroad as domestic laborers.

The literature further suggests that in order to deal with said challenges for

relatively long periods of time, overseas Filipino domestic helpers must have

developed resilience over time. Several studies focusing on the resilient nature of

Filipinos suggest that community or shared resilience could be playing the most

significant role in the capacity of Filipinos to survive adverse situations such as wars,

typhoons and famines: the literature proposes that Filipinos tend to adapt well and

survive when they help each other in the spirit of bayanihan. Being the closest to an

individual, the family is perceived to be the most significant “community” wherein

resilience development is facilitated. However, although many researchers

constantly associate resilience with external factors such as stressors and aids,

some researchers highlight the significance of resilience of adults on the personal

level. This notion and perception of adult personal resilience is interesting and

noteworthy since foreign Filipino domestic helpers are working abroad and, thus, do

not enjoy the company of the families they left behind. Since the literature provides

that Filipinos are more adept in adapting and adjusting through family or shared

resilience, the absence of such company should make it more difficult for domestic

helpers to deal with the challenges and dangers associated with working abroad.

26
However, this is not suggested by the growing number of Filipinos who choose to

work abroad as domestic helpers. Therefore, assessment of adult personal

resilience in overseas Filipino domestic helpers must be significant in understanding

and gaining more insights into the coping and development of these workers.

27