DIFFERENT VOICE/FILIPINOS: In just over a decade, the number of Filipinos in Ireland has risen from 300 to 6,000, writes Nuala Haughey, Social and Racial Affairs Correspondent
Every Wednesday and Saturday evening, Busáras's central station in Dublin's Store Street is transformed into an unofficial embassy for the country's Filipino community.
The Filipino honorary consul, retired Kildare farmer Mr John Ferris, takes his place in the terminal's waiting area and dozens of Filipino workers sit in rows patiently waiting for him to handle their queries.
With a briefcase perched on his lap and an ink pad at hand, he does everything from stamping and taking fingerprints for official documents to selling copies of a Filipino newspaper.
The nearest Filipino embassy is in London and Mr Ferris handles or passes on complaints about nursing homes not paying premiums for Sunday work, domestic employees working much more than their official hours or employers not giving people public holidays owed.
"There's too many Filipinos to come to an office and there are insurance problems," said Mr Ferris. "Up to 80 people come each night. Usually I don't come until after 5.30 p.m. and people will be all lined up in the seats. They come in from all over Ireland. It's convenient for them and they know where it is and they can get their buses back to Kerry or Galway or Belfast."
Mr Ferris estimates that some 80 per cent of his work involves stamping documents to allow relatives of work visa-holders to travel to Ireland, a vital provision for a community 10,957 km from home.
The Philippines is the largest exporter of registered nurses in the world, with at least 250,000 working throughout the world and 3,000, mostly women, filling acute nursing shortages in the Republic in the past few years.
Mr Ferris, whose wife is Filipino, took up the voluntary post 11 years ago when there were about 300 people from the Philippines living the Republic.
Philippines-born Ms Visking Kennedy, who has lived in Dublin for 24 years, knows all about the culture shock that awaits nursing recruits, from unusual accents, unfamiliar food and cold weather in a country whose population is sparse compared to the 80 million people at home.
Ms Kennedy, with her Irish husband Jim, who spent seven years in the Philippines, have given cultural orientation talks to hundreds of nurses recruited by the O'Grady-Peyton Europe company and to their Irish colleagues. Small things, such as the way Filipinos lift their eyebrows as symbols of recognition or purse their lips to acknowledge something, are cultural symbols peculiar to that country which are not recognised in Ireland, said Ms Kennedy.
The couple's training materials outline differences between the two cultures, stressing the deep importance of family for Filipinos, the nature of the country's hierarchical society, the tendency of its people to back off from confrontations and the slower but very thorough rhythm of work.
"Because Filipinos are Asian, there is also a sensitivity about saving face," said Ms Kennedy. "An Irish person will not be hurt when corrected in public but a Filipino will be twice as hurt."
The Kennedys, who co-founded the Filipino-Irish Association, are encouraged to see the Filipino community swell and gain in confidence in recent years. "Asians have the impulse to stay together and there is a danger that you stay in an enclave and become ghettoised. As Filipinos in Ireland are spread throughout the country, there is little opportunity to create a 'Little Philippines' and that is a good thing," he said.
The remittances of Filipino workers in Ireland are vital to pay back loans taken out to enable them to come here, support young families or pay for the education of siblings.
Western Union Money Transfer sponsors social events for the community and takes prominent advertisements in the recently launched Filipino Newspaper.
Edited by Ms Genalin Hatamosa Actub, the newspaper is full of photographs of Filipino events under the jaunty slogan: "The land that wears a smile".
Catholicism is the dominant religion in the Philippines and the religious affinity with Ireland is reassuring for many recent arrivals here who pack out the monthly Filipino mass celebrated in the Blessed Sacrament Chapel on Bachelor's Walk in Dublin.
The afternoon service is conducted by the community's chaplain, Father Pat O'Connell, who spent more than 30 years in the southern Philippines. A Filipino choir leads the singing and the community gathers for tea and coffee after the service, which has become an important event on the social calendar of the community, which is dispersed throughout Dublin and beyond.
Other favourite gathering places for groups of Filipinos in Dublin are the GPO, an easily recognisable city landmark, or fast-food restaurants on O'Connell Street.
The attraction to burger chains may seem peculiar for people used to Asian cuisine, but the very global character of such eateries, which are also common in the Philippines, brings a comfort of its own, says Josquin San Luis.
Josquin (31), who works at Cherry Orchard Hospital in Ballyfermot and has lived in Ireland for 18 months, says his fellow nationals are clannish people who adhere strongly to traditional beliefs and culture.
While they generally love karaoke and dancing, the concept of spending a night in a pub is alien for many Filipinos, particularly as they are very conscious of the high cost of living in Ireland.
"Socialising-wise, I think the Filipino community is still having to adjust to the Irish social life of going to the pub and drinking and talking all night which we are not used to," he said.
"We're slowly integrating ourselves because I can see from my friends that once we got to know people we are working with we are starting to open up and they are opening up too."
Josquin and other non-national colleagues in his hospital are organising a social evening in the hospital next month to introduce their Irish colleagues to their cultures and repay the welcome they have received.
However, not all workers have been treated as favourably, particularly the estimated 1,000 Filipinos who are working illegally, having overstayed their one-year work permits or come in on tourist visas as spouses of nurses.
Paul, a former shop worker, left his employment after his boss deprived him of holidays and overtime and made rent deductions without permission.
He has since moved jobs and is preparing, with the help of the SIPTU trade union, to take a case to a rights commissioner. "I didn't know what my entitlements were and I wondered how to get holidays," said Paul, who is now happily working as a kitchen porter.
Like many Filipino workers, Paul paid a placement fee to an agent in the Philippines, despite the fact that such charges have been outlawed there. One Filipino national was arrested and jailed last year in the Philippines for charging a placement fee of about €6,000 for a fast-food worker in Dublin, said Mr Ferris.
Several nurses interviewed by The Irish Times paid small placement or "processing" fees in the Philippines of about €250, while Paul paid about €2,000. They realise they have little choice; if they don't pay the fee and get that job, then someone else will.
"The problem is that sometimes the people who are ripped off in this way are related to the illegal recruiters as first or second cousins living in the same village," said Mr Ferris. "It's only when they come over here and meet Filipinos who haven't paid anything that they realise this. Even then, people often don't feel like complaining because they have a debt of gratitude."