PHILIPPINES - Suze Orman speaks fondly of Filipinos. For many years,
she has had Filipinos working for her back home in the US, and she only has
praises for their diligence and dedication.
Having Filipinos in her household has made the Emmy-winning TV host,
best-selling author, and straight-talking motivational speaker familiar with
Filipino cultural idiosyncrasies, one of which she has come to frown upon as a
personal finance expert: They send all the money they make to the Philippines.
Orman, who was just in the country as guest of BPI, told the Inquirer
of one employee who, after a decade or so of taking a month off each year
without fail to visit her family back home in Cebu, suddenly no longer wanted
to make the trip.
"So I asked why. And she said, 'Because when I go home, all they
want is money. And I'm getting older, Suze, and I don't know how much longer
I'll be able to work.'" The Filipino employee said she now wanted to save
up for her old age.
Hearing this deeply saddened the TV host, as she knew how hard her
household staff worked.
"That had a profound effect on me," she said.
"This is a woman who didn't see her child from the age of 5 until
the age of 15, because she couldn't go home until she got her green card, and
it took 10 years. She cared enough for her family to not see her child for 10
years! And now she voluntarily doesn't want to go home."
Orman acknowledged that people-parents, in particular-have a propensity
to express their love materially, and to quickly bail out their children when
they have money issues, and this is not unique to Filipinos.
"What's unique to the Philippines is this built-in culture that
one person could take care of a lot of people, a built-in culture that if you
leave the Philippines and you go abroad to make money, it's absolutely your
obligation to send home that money, whether you can afford to or not," she
said.
Orman doesn't see this as a good thing.
"You know, I have a saying, 'When is helping hurting, and when is
hurting helping?' Sometimes when you give and you give, people never have the
ability to rise and see what they can do on their own.
In a very strange way it keeps people down. It keeps them thinking that
they can't do something unless someone sends them money."
Cheche V. Moral
Philippine Daily Inquirer/Asia News Network
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