The Situation of Filipino Homeworkers

Profiles of some Filipino homeworkers also illustrate the real situation facing them in the Philippine setting.

Ka Lilay weaves sawali or palm leaves for a subcontractor in her village in the Philippines. She buys palm leaves and bamboo from a local farmer. The bamboo is cut into long strips with sharp knives and Ka Lilay then weaves them into rectangular mats according to specifications provided by the subcontractor. Sometimes the subcontractor refuses to pay her, saying the mats are not of the required quality (but taking them anyway). Then Ka Lilay loses not only her earnings from the weaving, but also her investment in the raw materials. But there is nothing she can.

Intense trade liberalization and tariff reduction thrusts adopted by countries like the Philippines under the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC), ASEAN Free Trade Agreement (AFTA) and similar trade accords associated with globalization have brought about stiff competition in the world export market.

Today, despite the devaluation of the peso, the country has become even less a major player in the export market. Among the biggest export losers is the garments industry, which is the biggest employer of women workers. As a result, garments and textile firms have been forced to either shut down or lower costs by laying off workers, reducing the number of regular employees, and using more contractual or subcontracted workers who have less or no privileges and benefits.

Globalization has also meant the coming of computer-controlled technology in many sectors. Home-based embroidery workers are among those who have been displaced by this trend which means that the work they used to do is now done in small factories by computer-aided machinery which can turn out products of consistent high quality at a very much faster rate.

Maria, a subcontracted homebased worker belonging to the PATAMABA chapter in Malibong Bata, Pandi, Bulacan, says embroidery work was a good source of livelihood from the 1980s to the early nineties. But in the years 1996-97, orders for embroidery started to dwindle. If before, her income from embroidery could suffice, today, there are more times when she has no orders than when she has. Because of this, she thinks that subcontracting will eventually disappear. Before, after getting her wages, she could still go to the market. Today, she just goes to the corner store for their household needs because the market is far and the cost of transportation is high. She and her children also plant vegetables. They dug up a small fishpond and started to raise some tilapia.

She can no longer attend village occasions because of the expensive custom of gift-giving. She just fulfills unavoidable obligations such as going to funerals. During Christmastime, only the children get to have new clothes. Her eldest daughter stopped schooling to work in a store and help earn an income for the family.

Maria is just one out of many homeworkers in her village who are suffering from dwindling embroidery orders, according to a study done through the auspices of the University of the Philippines Center for Women's Studies. Consequently, these homeworkers, already saddled with a variety of debts to their cooperative and other credit sources, have shifted to other means of livelihood (e.g., hog-and quail-raising which are now affected by high cost of feeds and other inputs), or have migrated to other