Short introduction
For the readers that do not know much about the Philippines. As a country, the Philippines is a combination of islands located in southeast Asia. The country has diverse cultures living under one flag, different sets of islands have different foods, languages, and even different physical characteristics. Tagalog is the official language of the Philippines, but not the only one, Cebuano (mostly popularly referred to as Visaya or Bsisaya), and Pampango are few of more than 150 live languages and dialects in the Philippines.
Almost all Filipinos speak English which is understandable to most westerners. Maybe that is the reason after 15 years living and working with “Kabayans” in Dubai, Saudi and even in the US, I did not have the need to learn Tagalog. Just in case, “Kabayan” is the Tagalog for “countryman”, but in the middle east, Kabayan is popularly known as a Filipino national.
Filipinos in general are simple, funny, clean, love life, and helpful. Karaoke and drinking are in the center of their culture. However, like any nationality, not all people are the same, there are also the very bad that you want to avoid.
Why do many Filipinos work overseas?
There are more than 11 million Filipinos outside the Philippines but only 2.3 million of them are registered OFW (Overseas Filipino Workers). The US is where most of the overseas Filipinos are (more than 4 million), Saudi comes at second place (with around one million), and UAE comes at third (with around 700K). More than 10% of the Philippines GDP is from OFWs. The Philippines has the fourth highest inward remittance after India, China, and Mexico with a total of more than $34 billion per year (2019 statistics, before COVID).
The main reason behind people leaving and working overseas, is the poor economic situation in the Philippines, high concentration of high skilled and educated people in a small geographic area. In addition, Filipinos love to live and spend money, also very family oriented, and it is an obligation for kids to help parents and educate their kids and help siblings. All that makes them leave their country to work overseas and send money back home.
Dubai and Saudi have a huge percentage of Filipino workers?
It is a misconception that people hire Filipinos because they are cheap. From my experience, it is true Filipino workforce is cheaper in many places around the world, but Filipinos are not the cheapest workforce in the market, and they are not the most trouble free either. But for sure they are the easiest and most fun people to work with, they are flexible, they have the highest return for their salary, they are focused workers, and English is almost native language (with little pronunciation issues, my Filipino friends will understand, which is charming).
In every country I worked in, there should be a huge area dedicated to Filipino OFWs, for example Al Satwa and Al Nahda in Dubai, and Batha in Riyadh. These are areas where you can find pork meat (in an Islamic country) and “Red Horse” beer (except in Saudi), Filipino food and bread shops, Filipino famous brand restaurants like Jollibee, Max Chicken, and ChowKing.
In addition, you can find many services catering to the Filipino community, like the shipping company LBC and other competitors that ship a small fridge size box to the Philippines for less than $100. These shipping companies they even use to pick the box from my house. Almost one fourth that size box cost me more than $1,000 to ship to the US via Fedex and I used to take the box to their shop.
The other thing is important and must have for Filipino OFWs beside WIFI, are churches. In almost all countries, there are big catholic churches, or other houses of worship for the non-Catholic kabayans. In Saudi there are no churches but there are places inside compounds and embassies rented by small groups of people to have the Sunday prayers.
Type of jobs Filipinos do in Dubai.
Many people living in UAE say without Indian workers, UAE would not have been built. That is very true, Indian cheap skilled and unskilled labor was and still is essential to build and maintain Dubai and the whole Gulf Countries. However, in my opinion, Filipino workers come as important in making UAE the service-oriented hub it is today, and essential to run the economy of the country.
I cannot think of any other nationality that can replace the Filipino workforce in the whole Arab world. If you live in the GCC countries you will notice that all restaurants are run by Filipinos, even Vietnamese, Indian, Nepal, and Pakistani food places you will see Filipino cooks and waiters and waitresses. They are very customer oriented, flexible, smiling, and pleasant to deal with, compared with any other nationality.
I can easily say 90% of nurses in all hospitals in the Gulf Countries are Filipinos or Filipinas. Nursing is one of the most popular professions in the Philippines, it costs a lot of money for Filipinos to become registered nurses. In addition, most dental technicians, caregiver, and hospital staff are Filipinos, and many of them are university graduate, pharmacists, doctors, and dentists, but they cannot get certification from these countries due to the fees and time involved, so they work lower paid jobs and at the same time serve their communities part time and for extra cash.
There are of course many engineers and technicians in Dubai. Most of my office team in Dubai from accountants, engineers, estimators, and admin were Filipinos, and many of my site technicians were also Filipinos.
They say Thailand is a country of smiles, it is of course very true, but I will argue that Filipinos are as smiling, at least outside Manila. I can say there is no one store or a shop in a mall in UAE without at least one Filipino or Filipina sales. Most receptions, phone operators, airline workers, and customer service workers are Filipinos. They have a great customer relationship capability and smiling face.
Typical Filipino life in Dubai.
Filipinos by nature love to live a full life, even with the limited means most of them have better cameras, phones, tablets, computers, and electronics, Nike shoes and ray ban sunglasses than me. However, on the other hand they would save greatly on food and housing. That also shown in the high Blood Pressure, kidney problems, and other heart and diabetes illnesses at older ages.
For westerners, privacy and individual space is especially important. In Filipino culture, being in groups is important, bunk beds, 6 or more people in a room are common things. The beds are separated sometimes with curtains for privacy, and that is why these bed spaces are called “partitions”. Due to different working shifts, I used to see while visiting my friends, people sleeping, while the lights are on, and people coming in and out and talking and yelling and laughing.
Conclusion
This was an attempt to describe the way many working class Filipino colleagues live in Dubai. It might be better than back home for some, but it is by no means a life of comfort. They take life easy and cheerfully, and by faith, but they do it to send the money back home to secure the education of their kids, payment for the house, or a family member or a spouse.
In my second post I will talk about the challenges they face at work, in their daily life, and the huge issues they face back home and especially when they are ready to retire and go back home.
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