In the Service of the Filipino Worldwide:The Filipino Migrant Worker in the Transnational Cinematic Space

Cherish Aileen A. BrillonFar Eastern University

Edgardo A. Brillon Jr.University of the Philippines

Mass media in the globalized economy

Media industries have become big businesses

Supremacy of space over time is made possible through diversification of transnational companies.

Why political economy?

The power and influence mass media wields in the social, political and economic level.

the intersection between theory and

practice, where institutional policies are linked with research.

Philippine mass media

Commercial and privately owned

Duopoly

In the service of the Filipino: ABS-CBN as a media conglomerate

Various ABS-CBN holdings:

In the service of the Filipino: ABS-CBN as a media conglomerate

Company slogan:

In the Service of the FilipinoWorldwide

United States

UAE

SaudiArabia

UnitedKingdom

Malaysia

Australia

Canada

Singapore

Japan

Qatar

Main Points: Star Cinema’s migrant films serve two

purposes:

Filipino migrant worker as another potential market: through its representations of their stories in the transnational spaces

Filipino labor as product: the political and economic policies of the Philippine government in exporting human labor

What are Filipino ‘migrant’ films?

Filipino migrant workers as central characters

Experiences in a foreign country

Explicit titles of places which serves as a promotional/tourism material for both the transnational space and the film

Filipino migrant films

UAE

Australia

Italy

Representation of Filipino migrant workers

As: Hardworking Able to adapt to the ways of a foreign

culture Dependable Loving and sacrificing Modern day heroes

Representation of Filipino migrant workers

Balikbayan box as: Signifier of upward mobility Downplayed the hardships in terms of

abuse, violence, and discrimination one has to endure in order to procure these signs of material affluence

Representation of Filipino migrant workers

governs transnational relationships between the Western producer and the Filipino consumer

“commercialization of private feelings”

Representation of Filipino migrant workers

Concept of two masters

the foreign master: economic transaction

the family: kinship and social transaction

Representation of Filipino migrant workers

Deterritorialization

Is there a “weakening” attachment of the Filipinos to their homeland?

Representations of transnational spaces

Major character: transnational spaces

Tourist gaze - is the peculiar combination of the means of collective travel, the desire to travel and the techniques of photographic reproduction (Urry, 2002).

The lives of these Filipinos are framed and are negotiated on these transnational spaces

Representations of transnational spaces Filipino workers’ migration is straightforward

Urban to Urban or Rural to Rural

Representations of transnational spaces Open spaces are representative of: Freedom Isolation Loneliness

Representations of transnational spaces

RomanticismThe characters always find love in the most

beautiful places or what is popularly known as tourists landmarks.

Representations of transnational spaces

The concept of other places being more prosperous and safe compared to the Philippines

Representations of transnational spaces

Reterritorialized spaces for the Filipinos

Hang-out place after work in Milan

Picnic at the beach in Dubai

Filipino migrant workers’ labor as product

Government’s labor policyFormer President Macapagal-Arroyo’s Mid-Term

Philippine Development Plan states:

Overseas employment remains to be a legitimate option for the country’s work force….Better employment opportunities and modes of engagement in overseas labor markets shall be actively explored and developed, consistent with regional and international commitments and agreements (Tyner 2004, p.51 as cited in Brillo, 2008, p. 47)

Narrative of the Filipino migrant worker as savior

Their stories are set against foreign places, framed as romantic, beautiful, exotic, but out of reach for majority of Filipinos.

These places are ideologically projected as free from crime, safe, secured, and financially prosperous and rewarding than living in the Philippines.

How?

But…

Glossed over the holistic picture of what being a Filipino migrant worker entails in a capitalist society.

The labor policy as a way out of poverty and a chance towards financial and social mobility.

Filipino migrant worker as potential target market

ABS-CBN has a stake in the success and continued propagation of these films

ABS-CBN sends a message that they exist to tell their stories

Then incorporates transnational places as an additional attraction to their other target market: local viewers.

Mass media as a business enterprise Through diversification ABS-CBN has reduced

geographical spaces and made it easier for them to create a potential market for their services

Conclusion

Exposed the workings of media with a primarily business orientation and a government with its own labor agenda

Implications of media’s ‘supposed’ adversarial role with the government

In the Service of the Filipino Worldwide:The Filipino Migrant Worker in the Transnational Cinematic Space

Cherish Aileen A. BrillonFar Eastern University

Edgardo A. Brillon Jr.University of the Philippines