American dreams

PINOY KASI
American dreams

By Michael Tan
Inquirer
Last updated 02:12am (Mla time) 09/15/2006

Published on Page A15 of the September 15, 2006 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer

MILLIONS of Filipinos dream of migrating overseas for a better life, with the United States probably still their most favored destination.

I’d like to see the Pulse Asia and the Social Weather Stations poll groups probing a bit more into what Mother America represents to the Filipino, but I suspect that the majority of Filipinos see the United States as the richest, most democratic country in the world, a country of opportunity and of fairness.

All these perceptions come from a snowball effect. Because of half a century of formal colonial occupation, Filipinos know more about America than any other Western country, maybe even more than about our own country.

And with some two million Filipinos already living there, America becomes even more real for many Filipino families, in the photographs and the goods that spill out of the “balikbayan” boxes (never mind that a lot of those goods are made in China -- they still smell like America).

Dismal

But our awareness of America’s bounties may be skewed. Time and time again, international statistics have shown that while the United States remains the wealthiest and most powerful country in the world, it lags far behind many other developed countries in terms of social indicators and quality of life. For example, the UNDP’s annual Human Development Index considers not just Gross National Product but social indicators, and in the last few years, they have consistently shown how Canada and several Scandinavian countries offer a better quality of life than the United States.

Last week a US research group, the Economic Policy Institute, released its report on the “State of Working America 2006-2007,” and the statistics for the United States are dismal. Compared to 19 other member countries of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), all developed countries, the United States has the highest income inequality, the highest poverty rates, the highest infant mortality rate and the lowest life expectancy. The report also notes that workers in America have to work far more hours than European workers, with fewer benefits.

I pulled out a few statistics to share with readers:

Between 2000 and 2004, adjusting for inflation, median income in the United States fell by 3 percent. Incomes are marked by great inequality. From 1992 to 2005, the median pay for chief executive officers (CEOs) rose by 186 percent while that for workers went up by 7 percent.

Some 37 million people, or 13 percent of the population, are classified as poor. Inequalities in wealth have risen mainly as the rich draw more income from stocks and mutual funds, rather than salaries. But less than half of American households own stocks in any form. About 13 percent of White households and 29 percent of Black households have zero or negative net worth, meaning they have more liabilities than assets.

Poverty and deprivation are most stark in health care, with 40 percent of adults surveyed in the United States saying they have gone without needed care due to costs. This shouldn’t be surprising, given that 46 million Americans have no health insurance coverage.

We think of the United States as a land of opportunity, but the Economic Policy Institute found that income mobility has slowed down so that rags-to-riches stories are now an exception rather than the rule. The most shocking statistic in the report is that for a poor family with two children, it will take nine to 10 generations -- over 200 years -- to reach middle-income status.

Education continues to be an important variable in determining wages and income mobility, but the problem is that access to education is itself a function of income. A telling statistic from the Economic Policy Institute: Only 29 percent of high-achieving children from low-income families finish college, with almost the same figure, 30 percent, applying to low-achieving children of high-income families.

Still America

Despite all the grim statistics, the United States will continue to be the land of milk and honey for Filipinos mainly because we have been so Americanized. A Filipino goes through much less culture shock in the United States than in Europe, having grown up surrounded by things American, from McDonald’s to MTV.

The bottom line, too, is that the Philippines is in such a bad shape that even the worst of America seems almost luxurious compared to the poverty here. The poverty threshold level for a family of four (parents and two children) is about $20,000, but many Filipinos won’t think of that as poverty; after all, in the Philippines, $20,000 makes one a millionaire.

There are other perks. The Economic Policy Institute reports that 68 percent of American households own their own homes. Most Filipinos will never see such statistics, but they know that their “Tita” [Aunt] Angie or “Lolo” [Grandpa] Berto, who worked as utilities persons, have their own house and a car, maybe even cars -- never mind if the house is run down and the cars are second-hand. And who cares about all those statistics indicating difficult social mobility when being part of the underclass in the United States seems that much better than being in the middle class in the Philippines.

Deserving more

I still believe the Filipino deserves more, and by “more” I mean being able to live a decent life here in the Philippines. But the Economic Policy Institute’s figures remind us of a painful irony: Even as Filipinos try to escape poverty here by moving to the United States, we fail to see how our problems here are often linked to our slavish imitation of Mother America with her dog-eat-dog capitalism, with her showbiz “democracy,” with little regard for issues of social justice.

Alas, we continue to delude ourselves, insisting on the American model of letting the rich get richer first and hoping the benefits will trickle down. It’s not happening here. What we have instead is the migration safety valve, with 1 out of 10 Filipinos working or living overseas so he can bring home the dollars and yen and euros. Often enough, the wages aren’t any much better than what he could have gotten here, if the jobs were available. (Just think of the Filipinas working for $200 a month in Lebanon. Why couldn’t we create jobs paying P10,000 a month here?)

The Economic Policy Institute and UNDP reports should spur us to look for other models for development, from Canada, Europe to even neighboring countries that have tried to combine economic growth with social development.

Our dreams, and our despair, are those of America writ large.

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The Society for Adolescent Medicine of the Philippines (Sampi) will hold its 4th biennial convention from Sept. 20 to 21 at the Century Park Hotel around the theme “Defining the Vision for Adolescent Health and Well-being.” For more information, call +632 9246601, local 274.