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Mary Jane Veloso and the language of the '€˜world'€™s best workers'€™

In a handwritten letter, a copy of which was kept by the Philippine Embassy in Jakarta, Mary Jane Veloso, who avoided execution on Tuesday, wrote:Im work to Dubai United Arab Emirates

Julius C. Martinez (The Jakarta Post)
Manila
Sat, May 2, 2015

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Mary Jane Veloso and the language of the '€˜world'€™s best workers'€™

I

n a handwritten letter, a copy of which was kept by the Philippine Embassy in Jakarta, Mary Jane Veloso, who avoided execution on Tuesday, wrote:

Im work to Dubai United Arab Emirates ... Im work there as a servant and my contract is 2 year'€™s but im stay there for 10 months because have someone want to rape me, I decided to come back to Philippines on December 31, 2009.

I'€™m comeback to my country but my money not enough because my son already go to school ... I need a work again...How many times I go to the Manila in Agency I try to apply again as a servant take to the another country but almost 3 months the agency did not contact me.

One day Christine asked me about work!!! Christine is my neighbor in the Philippines and my family know she'€™s good and every week she go to Malaysia and if she comeback to the Philippines'€¦she bring a thinks like shampoo, lotions, perfume and etc'€¦ All people in my village know that'€¦ Christine job is buy and sell like this'€¦

In between her words and punctuation errors nestle hidden narratives: the neoliberalism of labor migration, the feminization of migrant labor, the problems of diaspora, the politics of return and the like. These lenses render incisive analysis on the plight of Veloso and hordes of overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) who are in distress.

News reports consistently state the following facts: Veloso is fluent in Tagalog, one of the major languages in the Philippines. She does not speak fluently in English. She was given an unlicensed interpreter, a student at a foreign language school in Yogyakarta where she was detained, who translated the court proceedings from Indonesian to English and vice-versa.

The whole court might have gone astray in translation, her lawyer pressed, thus a need to review her case.

On this account, we can see the strong grip of English as it predicates the atmosphere surrounding the courtroom: the judge and lawyers speak in their native language; a questionable translator communicates the proceedings in English to Veloso, who is not that receptive to English.

In these fuzzy dynamics, there is no lingua franca to speak in. All actors in the court are left at the mercy of a language that is foreign to them.

It becomes apparent that the circumstances leading to her fate engendered language issues. A re-visit to the past can help us steer clear.

Every year, the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA), the government agency mandated to manage the country'€™s overseas employment program, declares in its annual reports that there is an impressive growth of employment abroad because foreign principals believe that Filipino workers are English proficient, among many other skills.

To me, what is particularly striking is not the staggering numbers POEA presents annually but the medley of labels used to promote Filipino migrant workers in several of their reports: world-class workers, global workers, to name a few.

When POEA celebrated its 25th anniversary in 2007, it dedicated its service to the '€œworld'€™s best worker'€.

To continue this '€œniche'€ and '€œgrowth'€, the educational systems of the past and present have been suited to privilege English in order for Filipino students to meet the demands of the global economy. From Marcos to Aquino, Filipinos can see in various shapes how the state legitimated English and deployed this language to market its citizens abroad.

On the other side, labor recipient countries and the whole global economy enterprise embrace this rhetoric and look forward to Filipino workers with adroitness and confidence in English.

But reality turns out to be different. At ground level, English proficiency in the Philippines lies in a spectrum of weak to strong proficiency and the varying levels of proficiency in English manifest gaps in socio-economic classes.

For Indonesians who perceive Filipinos'€™ English better than their English-speaking abilities, it may not have made sense to the Indonesian judge when Veloso'€™s lawyers argued for a review of the case on the premise that she was not competent in English.

In the eyes of the Indonesians and the rest of the world, a migrant Filipino worker is the world'€™s best worker and the world'€™s best worker must be fluent in English.

This is the dilemma that OFWs are saddled with at the moment. When faced with precarious workplace situations that require legal intervention, they ought to speak in a language that the state has used to peddle their wares. If they cannot speak English well, they are doomed to prison or death.

And what of the supranational organization that is supposed to address political and economic issues like this? Unlike the European Union that makes rulings on language issues involving member states, the ASEAN is drifting away from complex language problems.

In fact, the organization has fallen into the trap of the linguistic capital of English. With the institutionalization of English as the sole official language, ASEAN appears to reject the linguistic diversity of the region.

With regional integration at work, ASEAN is envisioning a seamless movement of Southeast Asians across the borders of the region. Yet it has not confronted complex language issues that govern migratory flows.

The ASEAN Declaration on the Protection and Promotion of the Rights of Migrant Workers is surprisingly silent about the language rights of migrant workers caught up in legal battles. The association has to address ways for an organized language management that does not deny multilingualism and all the inherent fabrics that define its content and character.

A starting point would be for ASEAN to establish provisions for court interpreting. Interpreting provides a guarantee of comprehension especially to someone who is too vulnerable to communicate outside of their mother tongue.

However, it is not enough that ASEAN provides interpreters who can speak the language of the defendant or witness, but the interpreter needs sufficient training in legal language and procedures to be able to explain complex legal notions.

In the end, however, we all know well that ASEAN does not have the backbone to enforce genuine and long-lasting reforms. In fact, it chooses to be silent about abrasive concerns like territorial disputes, human rights violations and language matters.

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Filipinos can see how the state legitimated English and deployed this language to market its citizens abroad.

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The writer teaches at Ateneo de Manila University and University of the Philippines Diliman. He taught in Indonesia for several years

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