The Philippines is an important part of the Silk Road. One in three overseas Filipino workers is based in the Middle East. This opinion piece in Al Hayat offers a glimpse of the challenges they face. It criticizes the fact Filipino workers in Lebanon are prohibited from using the country’s private beaches. I don’t blame the workers for wanting to spent a few hours eating shish tawook and smoking nargileh on the Mediterranean seashore. Most notoriously, the wife of the Philippines Ambassador was prevented from entering the Marmouq club near Beirut.
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Tag Archives: Philippines
Lebanon’s private beaches and Filipino workers
The Philippines Joins The New Silk Road
I was eating breakfast in a Doha hotel last month. The restaurant was split in two by a series of white bed sheets strung from the roof. I sat on one side. About 80 Filipino men sat on the other. An instructor was lecturing them on worksite safety using an ageing overhead projector. I felt for them. It was a Sunday. The air was also stifling inside the restaurant and the men were struggling to stay awake.
The Philippines is a long way from the ‘old’ Silk Road. But it’s an integral part of the ‘new’ Silk Road. Its army of English-speaking workers is found all over the region from Hong Kong to Lebanon. Indeed, there are over 2.2 million Filipino workers in the Middle East alone. It’s a mind bending statistic. It means that more than 1 in 50 Filipinos live in a Middle East country.
Silk Road Gallery
Canton Trade Fair
August 12th, 2010
August 12th, 2010
“China cheat sheet helps investors survive”, Bloomberg, September 1, 2010
“No more silver bullets for Beijing”, Wall Street Journal, June 17, 2010
“China’s historic return to the Gulf”, Foreign Policy, April 2, 2010
