OFW's

   Overseas Filipino Workers are very interesting for me and it made me think during class, does the positive implications of "Brain drain" or more specifically Filipino's leaving the country for better income abroad outweigh the negative effects that occur within the country?

 
 If we think about it since the programs integrated by our government during the height of the demand for OFW's like the "Supermaid program" or the efforts made by TESDA (Technological Education and Skills Development Authority) to train OFW's including but not limited to welding, domestic helpers, mechanics etc. was it really effective? True the Philippines overall GDP has reached its highest in years and a number of OFW's returned wealthy in a matter of a few years but was it worth risking the lives of the few? People tend to forget or fail to research on what the implications of their actions would be. Government censorship or even just the plain old lack of initiative in the part of citizens have resulted to the failure of voicing out the negative effects of the program such as the implications on the family. The population of Filipina overseas workers is rather large, and in most cases they leave behind their family which leads to the first negative effect, Marriage is usually neglected or the loyalty and respect to the sacrament slowly diminishes as time passes for most families, also the children are deprived of the love and care of the mother which sometimes leads to the abnormal or unique development in most of the youth today. The next negative effect is the increase of abuse against our fellow countrymen have yet to cease and lastly and what I think is the most alarming is the increase of the underemployment rates not only in the domestic domain but the international realm as well. Most "Supermaids" are college graduates and our government has failed to utilize and maximize the skills and talents of the inhabitants of this great country, to put it more bluntly why train "Supermaids" when we could be training " Super Engineers" or "Super Doctors" and "Super Lawyers".

History of Globalization

    The history of Globalization more specifically when did it start is still up until now an issue in the academe although most conducted studies on the topic of Globalization has narrowed it down to the last two decades using the researches of past philosophers that have something to do with today's contemporary definition of Globalization and also as emphasized by Professor Sheuerman the diminishing of space or distance due to the emergence of the different types of high-speed forms of transportation such as rail ways, airplanes, and faster ships documented in the last two decades. I think Professor Sheuerman wanted to emphasize here was the great effect of transportation in Globalization after all every "synonym" mentioned in my past blog can be incorporated into transportation especially global integration and the free market or any form of economic activity and then the interaction of different cultures will soon follow.

What is it?

   Our professor had a rather interesting way of discussing globalization although not really dabbling much on the topic he did discuss enough to encourage me to do my own research on the subjects of Globalization and after light research I was able to get a grasp on the topic and somewhat created my own definition of globalization.

  I found out after my "light research" that globalization is not really just limited to economic activity as discussed by Professor William Scheuerman of Stanford University Globalization is just a synonym for a number of topics that can be used for academic discourse. A number of which he mentioned is Economic Liberalization, Americanization, the development of the internet as well as global integration.