THERE IS just too much bleeding-heart sentimentalization over overseas Filipino workers, bordering on ridiculousness. They have been practically mythologized, in a manner they themselves would detest.

Yes, there are horror stories—runaways from cruel employers with no one to turn to in a strange land, young women forced into prostitution—but we have to put things in perspective. We are talking here of a population of eight million OFWs, nearly as big as the population of Switzerland or Greece.

One reason for the depiction of OFWs as the downtrodden of the earth is that their alleged plight are being exploited by NGOs, here and abroad, which get donations from European leftist organizations or Christian do-gooder associations, purportedly in order to come to the succor of these “slaves” of global capitalism. More often, though, the donations merely finance the fat salaries (they call it “allowances”) of NGO elites who often have never worked a regular job yet manage to enjoy the comforts of cosmopolitan cities.

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