HONG KONG—Some three decades ago Filipino stewardesses working for Hong Kong’s premier airline were derisively tagged by macho circles in the territory with the acronym LBFM (little brown f–king machines). This made the rounds in the expatriate community, and since social media then was not as pervasive as it is today, Filipinos could only decry the slur and hope the malice was not widespread. The unfortunate episode eventually blew over.
Lately, a well-known official in Hong Kong’s legislative council engaged in her version of Filipino-bashing by writing in a local Chinese newspaper about a tale she claims came from some expatriate housewives in Discovery Bay, one of the territory’s upmarket districts. The legislator, known to harbor ambitions to be the territory’s next chief executive, reported that a number of Western ladies told her their marriages had been wrecked by Filipino nannies who had seduced their husbands. She posted the story in her blog as well as in Facebook.
Needless to say, today’s ever-vigilant Filipino community with its many clubs and nongovernment organizations went into high gear, denouncing the insult to Filipino women by mounting protests at the legislator’s office and in the city’s main park. Social media was engaged at its fullest. A satirical expat blogger wondered why a legislator had raised such a silly banal topic when Hong Kong is faced with more pressing political issues.
All this took place not long after reports circulated about the strange liaison between a British executive connected to a major firm in the city and a Filipino, a former maid. Hong Kong’s South China Morning Post detailed police reports about the couple’s teenage daughter jumping to her death from the top floor of their high-rise flat in the pricey enclave of Repulse Bay. Investigations revealed that the mother had been overstaying her visa for two decades and had been living with her British partner without benefit of marriage. It was also found that she has two daughters who were not registered at birth (as is required), and never sent the girls to school (obviously, as that would have revealed the illegality of their situation). Instead, the girls were sent to tutorial classes and an exclusive riding school, while the mother went around social circles of other Filipino women married to wealthy executive expats, where luxury living and high fashion were probably the premier topics of conversation.
No one suspected anything about the Filipino woman who played the role of a rich “tai-tai” (Cantonese for housewife) with aplomb. The fact that she and her daughters had neither identity papers nor legal status wouldn’t have surfaced if not for the girl’s suicide.
The bizarre British/Filipino relationship reflected harshly on both the father who allowed the deception and the mother who abetted it. He was soon released on bail by the police; she was charged with overstaying and child maltreatment, and also posted bail. Social services personnel briefly took the surviving daughter under their wing until a lawyer sorted things out, allowing the family to reunite.
Word soon leaked that the woman had a husband in the Philippines, and it seems easy to understand why the tragedy had occurred. Such situations are common in Hong Kong, with many women leaving families behind to earn a living, and no chances of legally shedding feckless husbands because divorce is banned, thanks to the Catholic Church.
Not long ago, Filipino migrant groups were involved in the case of a young Indonesian woman named Erwiana who made history of sorts when the media revealed that she had been horridly tortured by her mistress. Conscious of its image as an international business hub, Hong Kong knew it was in the spotlight and held a trial that ended in the imprisonment of Erwiana’s torturer. Today the mix of Chinese arrogance, with their economic power in the region, and Filipino and Indonesian aspirations for a better life show globalization’s detrimental effects.
International Women’s Day came and went on March 8, but Filipino women workers in Hong Kong don’t seem to have benefited much from this United Nations declaration instituted in 1975. And even though the International Labor Organization established a convention in the early 1950s for the protection of women workers, 2015 finds too many still mired in an atmosphere of disregard for their human rights and ingratitude for their invaluable work.
Indeed, the work of women’s empowerment has a long way to go.
Isabel T. Escoda is a freelance journalist based in Hong Kong.