Recently at a Pinoy kid's birthday party, I choked on the bilo-bilo in my ginataan when someone in the group said, "Di na kami nagpapadala sa Pilipinas."
"Ha?" I croaked, after some coughing cleared up my throat enough for me to respond.
"Oo, at matagal na rin kaming di nagpapadala ng balikbayan box sa Pinas."
"Bakit naman?" someone else asked this time. And so began a discussion that I thought would never happen within Filipino circles. Do Filipinos ever stop giving to their families in the Phils.? Is there a threshold when OCWs feel like their obligation to give has been fulfilled and they can finally stop supporting their loved ones back home?
Most Filipinos are motivated to work hard so their kids can go to better schools/colleges, graduate with a degree, and have a better life than their parents before them. This is the carrot most Pinoy OCWs have dangling before their eyes when they seek employment overseas. Attached to the carrot is usually a very long string tied to family and relatives in our traditional obligasyones at responsibilidad sa pamilya thing.
So it's no wonder that when we get here in the US, most of us send home anywhere from $200-$500 a month to our families. This is true for anyone, single or married and with a family. On top of supporting our own immediate families here, we also support extended families and relatives back home. Then when November rolls around, we contact our Pinoy friends here who work for balikbayan box companies back home so we can send a huge box of goodies.
Even if you don't have a family to support back home (like we do), the traditional Christmas balikbayan box is still something every Pinoy looks forward to filling up and sending back home. What usually goes in are: chocolates and what we call PX-type food (named after those shops in Greenhills that used to be the only ones to sell imported food) like corned beef, fruit cocktail, other canned goods, all sorts of chips, bake mixes, etc.; clothes, especially clothes that our kids here have outgrown (nope, we don't always send brand new clothes because they're still more expensive compared to those back home); towels (because they're thicker); bedsheets (because they last longer through many washings); toys; books; and others that you can fit in it without destroying the box. Every Pinoy family I know back home who has relatives abroad always look forward to the Christmas balikbayan box. So it was truly a shock to me (and others at that table) when we heard that one of us wasn't sending them anymore.
It turns out, she wasn't the only one. There were a few who were also planning to stop giving, and who now felt they will because one of us admitted they had stopped. The reasons given were varied, but the common denominator was "kasi nag-iipon na kami para makabili ng bahay". That makes sense. The $200-$500 sent each month back home can go towards saving funds to come up with about 20% of the cost of a house (so we don't have to get PMI or Private Mortgage Insurance). But is that all? It turns out, it wasn't.
Because of what I heard at the party, I went around and did an impromptu survey of my own and interviewed my other Pinoy friends to ask when, if at all, they had stopped sending padala and/or balikbayan boxes to the Phils. Some who had been here several years (less than 10) sent padalas erratically but regularly sent a balikbayan box. The newer ones (1 to less than 10 years here) send both fairly regularly. Some who were here more than 10 years had stopped sending money or the balikbayan box or both. The older ones who admitted to this said that their families are already cared for, i.e., the nieces and nephews whom they paid tuition for school for had already grown up, graduated from college, and now earning their own money to give to their parents (which their uncles and aunts here used to do). They also usually have some of their brothers, sisters, even their parents, already petitioned as American citizens, so they're already living here and are being supported here, if not working here themselves. What struck me, though, was that the older they were (not from my generation), the more it was likely that they still sent money home, even if it was for their apos (grandchildren). It didn't matter what their profession was: I know of a successful Pinoy doctor who is still sending money to his apos and anak ng mga pinsan, and another woman who still cleans offices and houses despite her age who also still sends money to her children's children. The reason given was, family is still family and you do all you can to help them.
It was those who belonged to my generation and younger it seemed, what my folks like to call the Martial Law and post Martial Law generations, who are beginning to suffer from charity burnout. The constant giving has brought on a sense of helplessness and of things being out of their control: I mean, "kelan ba kasi titigil ang pagdepende nila sa amin?" was one of the questions asked at the birthday party. There is always the danger that our relatives who rely on us back home will get used to depending on us that they don't do anything to better their lives themselves. I mean, how many Pinoys do we know whose relatives would squander the remittances we send? We don't have to look far because each one of us has a few of those in our families. At the first sign of trouble, they don't try to see if they can help themselves; they immediately e-mail us and ask for money. These issues eventually come up, and we know that, masakit man gawin, we have to teach our relatives how to fish instead of giving them fish all the time, so to speak.
However, sometimes with the sense of helplessness comes self-preservation or survival: "kelangan ko rin alagaan ang pamilya ko dito". These are all good reasons, but as time goes by, self-justification for our actions soon sets in: "Di ko naman kelangan magpadala kasi may trabaho naman sila. At kelangan ko rin magtrabaho at ng mga bagong damit sa trabaho at ng bagong sasakyan para di na ako mag-bus. At kelangan ko mag-ipon para sa bahay. Tutal naipatayo ko na sila ng bahay dun sa mga naipadala ko sa kanila." Then guilt sets back in and we sometimes end up sending a padala for no reason at all to quell our guilty feelings. And so the cycle starts all over again.
There's nothing wrong in suffering from charity burnout. There's nothing wrong in not sending remittances, as long as they are all in perspective. If your family is middle class or you know is not naghihirap naman, then I believe it's perfectly okay to not send something regularly. Look at me, for example: my family is so well off I didn't bother sending them anything at all in all the years we've been here. (Come on, they have several properties all over and my nieces and nephews are going to Poveda now.) I mean, the original reason I'm here at all is because, let's face it, I married beneath me (as my mom would say). Although my husband's family wasn't exactly impoverished, this geeky couple wanted to prove to everyone that we can make it on our own without help from old money (mine) or the family business (his). And we are doing good, thank you very much! Not great (i.e., raking in thousands everyday like Mama is probably doing right now just by sitting at home in Greenmeadows) but well enough so that we aren't lacking for the basic necessities of life. With this kind of situation, do you blame me for not sending anything home to them? We do send goodies to my nieces and nephews on my husband's side, though. Yun lang nga, dahil medyo maykaya din sila, pati ang mga hinihingi nila ay sosy. We once sent a $175 telescope because my brother-in-law wanted one.
But what if naghihirap talaga pamilya mo? The person at the party who said they had stopped sending money wasn't exactly well off back home. Their families on both sides don't live in a good area, and their brothers and sisters on both sides have erratic jobs, not because they're lazy or anything, but because they're just not that well equipped mentally. On both sides of this couple's family, their immediate relatives rely on their monthly padala. At least, that's what they told us a couple of years ago. So what has changed? Well, like my friend said, saving up for a house changed things. That and charity burnout--and maybe even a little bit of luho. In that group, she and her husband were the first to become a 2-car family, the only one I know who goes outlet shopping every spring and fall, and the one who took their kids out of private school (when they found out they could do something with the money they paid).
So I guess, to answer one of my original questions, when do we feel our obligation has been fulfilled and we can stop giving, I guess the answer lies within us. We can always justify charity burnout--why we stop giving to our families--with a lot of reasons that has nothing to do with the economy or our situation in life right now. Those of us who are here are almost always better off than those we left behind. Most of us earn more than our families at home are earning. We give to them because we realize they have a need. Pretty soon we realize that we have this power over them because we give to them: the power to stop the flow of money if we want to. I feel it is our responsibility to spread some of the monetary blessings we receive to our families and, if possible, beyond our family circle. Tulad nga ng sabi ng uncle ni Peter Parker sa Spiderman, "With great power comes great responsibility." Money is power (just ask anyone with a lot of it). Therefore, the greater the power, the greater the responsibility: the more money you have, the more you should use that money wisely, and part of that should be to give some to your family. After all, they are your family, and family is family.
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