BRUISED EGOS aside, a certain double standard appears to be at work. Filipinos raise a howl when a domestic helper is abused in Kuwait or Singapore, but the protests are muted when the abuse takes place in Makati or Alabang. Maids here are paid a pittance even in affluent homes and often work long hours and take no days off. Compare that to the US$500 a month with one day off a week that domestic helpers are guaranteed in Hong Kong. In Canada, caregivers are paid even more — from US$240 to $400 for each 44-hour workweek — and are entitled to two weeks paid vacation every year. Little wonder that trained Filipino teachers and nurses are only to willing to give tip relatively high-status, if poorly paid, careers here to work abroad as domestic helpers.

	Commercials abound with maids, so that even Sharon Cuneta's yaya, although not quite the megastar that her mistress is, has now also become a TV icon.

Apart from the financial rewards, work overseas can be liberating for many Filipinas who find themselves freed from the confines of unhappy marriages and demanding families where they as expected to be dutiful wives, mothers, or daughters. Overseas, on their own, they enjoy a certain autonomy and independence they could never have at home. Working abroad, despite the foreign culture and the harsh winters, can be an adventure: the stimulation and mind expansion that Filipinas experience, despite the drudgery of domestic labor, should certainly be factored in among the benefits of overseas work. There is also the rise in self-esteem and social status. Now their families' main breadwinners, Filipinas overseas not only become more confident of themselves, but also start asserting their power in the family, vis-a-vis parents, husbands, and children. The shift in gender roles, with men staying behind to care for children, is also bringing about a power shift in the Filipino family.

But these changes are fraught with grief. Every mother forced to live apart from her children so she can feed, clothe, and school them while caring for the offspring of others knows the anguish of separation. These moms make up for their absence by showering their children with material things, to compensate for the motherly attention the kids do not get. Pinay mothers send back balikbayan boxes filled with everyday necessities like toothpaste, Spam, cooking oil, even Q-tips. It is as if they were still doing the groceries at home. They call, text, or email to keep up the virtual mothering. But the tears and the anxiety — on both sides of the ocean — are real.

Studies ranging from the technocratese-filled tomes churned out by multilateral institutions to the earnest research conducted by NGOs warn that overseas mothering gives rise to families who indulge in consumption funded by remittances. The result: a crippling dependency on overseas income.

That observation may also be true for the nation as a whole. As the ADB noted in a 2004 study: "Migration is also said to have been perpetuated a culture of dependence on remittances not only on the part of beneficiary families but also the sending country which may conveniently postpone needed structural reforms to put the macroeconomic house in order." The study says that overseas money presents amoral hazard, as recipients may tend not to engage in economically productive work if assured of income from abroad.

In many families, the Ate (older sister), Tita (aunt), or Nanay (mama) who is abroad ends up carrying the financial burden for the entire clan. Afterall, from childhood, Filipinas are raised to be responsible and to take care of others. Ate helps out in the kitchen or in the laundry, while Kuya (older brother) and the other boys are out playing.

My own family, raised by a Kapampangan mother, was certainly like that. While I was made to watch the kare-kare simmer, my brothers never had to stand up from the dining table during meals, not even to fetch a pitcher of water, not even when they were already dying of thirst. While my mother, despite her Kapampangan genes, never insisted that I learn how to cook, it was expected that the girls run errands and help out with the household chores and the care of younger siblings. As for the boys, well, they were boys.

This sense of responsibility is so deeply ingrained that the Filipina's measure of self-worth, as noted by sociologists and psychologists, often comes from how well she takes care of her husband, children, and indeed, the rest of the clan. Noted clinical psychologist Lourdes Arellano-Carandang says the Filipina is brought up to be tagasalo, literally the catcher, meaning the one who props up the others and ensures they do not fall. Every Filipina has an inner Ate or Nanay that compels her to take the responsibility for others. Filipino men, meanwhile, are perfectly comfortable in the role of nagpapasalo or the ones taken care of and propped up. Thus, the stereotype of the Filipina as a natural caregiver, having been taught since childhood to take care of others.

The combination of nature and nurture, together with the pull factor of an expanding global service industry and the push factors of a stagnant economy and constricting job opportunities at home, set the stage for large-scale Filipina migration for years to come. Writer Jessica Zafra says, tongue in cheek, that the Philippine strategy for world domination is to take over the kitchens and nurseries of the world.

There may be a kernel of truth in that. For isn't it true that the hand that rocks the cradle also rules the world? In the 1980s, when Cory Aquino went on a state visit to Italy, her host, the prime minister, had one concern at the top of his mind: the passport woes of his Filipina maid. Princess Diana herself had a trusted Pinay maid, as do various other members of the global glitterati and political aristocracy. While the class and race divides in these instances are clear, the relationships between master/mistress and maid are complex. The rich and superbusy turn over the running of their domestic affairs to their household help, without whom, they are, well, helpless. Just look at the novels, films, and plays that probe the master-servant relationship. All of them reverse the power equation: in the end, they all reveal that the wiser, more humane, and indeed, more powerful characters are not the masters but their servants.

Ultimately, though, this only means that the Filipina is caregiver not only to millions of families abroad who cannot do without her but also to the families left behind here and to a motherless and rudderless nation that needs constant propping. Let's face it, overseas migration has not only brought us money, it has bought us time. It is a safety valve. By providing an outlet for the frustrated aspirations of the poor and the middle class, it has snatched us from the jaws of class rebellion. We have the Yaya Sisterhood to thank — or to blame — for that.

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