Overseas Filipinos in Canada also hit by 'rice crisis'; lay blame on government policies

For immediate release: May 8, 2008

With recent news of Filipinos in Canada buying and shipping rice to their relatives in the Philippines, several national Filipino organizations say the 'rice crisis' is now impacting Filipino workers in Canada. They say the 'crisis' is the fault of the Philippine government.

According to a United Nation reports, rice prices have risen 50 percent in the last two months. According to a recent survey by IBON Foundation Inc. seven out of ten Filipinos cannot buy enough food and have trouble paying for basic expenses.

"Daily we hear stories of relatives in the Philippines asking us to send more money because of rising food prices and the daily cost of living," says Roderick Carreon, National Chairperson of SIKLAB-Canada. "Overseas Filipino workers in Canada, many of whom are women live-in caregivers under the Live-in Caregiver Program, are feeling pressured to work more in order to meet their family's daily needs in the Philippines," says Carreon.

"While many media reports blame the 'rice crisis' on a drop in world production, we see the crisis as merely the result of decades of unfair trade agreements imposed on the Filipino people by the World Trade Organizations's program of trade liberalization which encourages rice importation," says Cecilia Diocson, Executive Director of the National Alliance of Philippine Women in Canada. "Instead of supporting and developing local agriculture and rice production to the benefit of its own people, the Philippine government has succumbed to foreign pressure and the Philippines, once a top world rice producer is now one of the world's top rice importers," says Diocson.

According to IBON Foundation, Inc. an independent think-tank, the Philippines is Asia's top rice importer with an average annual importation of over one million metric tons a year from 1995 to 2006, a dramatic increase from the 151,588 metric tons imported from 1984 to 1994. IBON points out that 1995 was the year when the Philippines became a member of the World Trade Organization and intensified trade liberalization, including the sphere of agriculture.

"Many Filipinos are going hungry not because of a lack of food, but because they cannot afford to buy it," says Diocson. "Instead of raising the minimum wage and creating employment, the Arroyo government continues to deploy 3,000 Overseas Filipino Workers (OFWs) abroad each day to countries like Canada. Here, Filipinos work as modern-day slaves in order to sustain their families' needs back home," says Diocson.

"The Philippine Ambassador and Consulates in Canada continue to encourage us to send remittances home and not be involved in politics, but with increasing pressure to provide more for our families back home it is time for us as overseas Filipinos to politicize ourselves and analyze developments in the Philippines and renew our call for the ouster of President Arroyo," says Carreon. "We continue to be the milking cows of the Philippine government that depends on our $12 billion annual remittances in order to prop up the ailing economy and quell social unrest," says Carreon.

According to the group, while food riots were reported in countries like Vietnam and Thailand, the Philippine government diffuses social unrest because Filipinos can still rely on their relatives abroad to send money and rice back home.

An estimated over 400,000 Filipinos live in Canada, making them the third largest visible minority group in Canada.

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For more information or to arrange and interview, please contact:

‧Vancouver: May Farrales, Philippine Women Centre of BC at Kalayaan Centre, ph: 604-215-1103, e-mail: pwc@kalayaancentre.net
‧Montreal: Cecilia Diocson, National Alliance of Philippine Women in Canada at Kapit Bisig Centre, ph: 514-678-3901, e-mail: pwcofquebec@gmail.com
‧Toronto: Joy Sioson, Philippine Women Centre of Ontario: 416-878-8772, e-mail: pwcontario@yahoo.ca