One-day OFW Millionaires

• Posted by admin on November 23rd, 2007 filed in OFW Asia

I FIRST heard the term “one-day millionaire” from a lower middle class family welcoming home a daughter who had just finished a six-month stint as an entertainer in Japan. I was doing research in their community and happened to be there when she came home from the airport amid much fanfare—and expectations. She had saved and brought home several lapads (wide 10,000-yen notes) and US dollars which, I later found out, amounted to almost P250,000.

The term came from the entertainer’s mother, her way of warning her daughter to watch her money. But I could sense that the family was going to be the main source of the entertainer’s problems. Even while she was unpacking, they were already talking about a low-cost housing project in a nearby province, and how a sari-sari store could help them meet their needs. All quite understandable aspirations, but in addition, her siblings were already asking for iPods and new clothes and shoes while other relatives were asking for blow-outs. One or two joked, half-seriously, about needing a loan.

I’ve seen other returning overseas workers who lived up to the term “one-day millionaire,” checking in the entire family ot a five-star hotel and going off on shopping sprees, literally for a taste of the good life. In Filipino, they’d say “para naman makatikim ng 5-star at steak (just to have a taste of a 5-star hotel and steak).” In a twist on the description “wine, women and song,” some returning entertainers also party way into the night, painting the town red in gay bars to watch macho dancers with their girl friends, ordering drinks left and right and leaving large tips.

This young woman was different, talking about how she wanted to go back to school and give her daughter (she was a single mother) a better life. A few months later she was dead broke, money all gone. Some of her savings went into small livelihood ventures but those floundered quickly. Meanwhile the Japanese government practically closed down the recruitment of Filipina entertainers, shattering her dream of another stint.

Gone are the Japayuki, but the one-day millionaires are all around us. This is more than just a phenomenon of women returning from Japan. As a nation, we do tend to live beyond our means. When good fortune comes, we tend to squander it quickly. It’s partly a mentality of living for today, given that life is so uncertain, especially in our times. There’s fear that things won’t last, the money will run out so let’s spend it now and get as much of the “good life” as we can.

Credit cards have, unfortunately, promoted this idea of luho (extravagance) – enjoy now, worry later – prodded on by ads for luxury items. It’s a bit like guests at a party who betray a lowly background as they pile up their plates with more food than they can eat, for fear that there won’t be enough to go around.

In other instances, we misuse our good fortune under social pressure. We do have an extended family system where people feel entitled to their share of new wealth. And by extended, I mean friends of relatives of neighbors of relatives. Note how even the pasalubong tradition—the expectation of gifts from someone returning from a trip, no matter how short—is part of this sharing of fortunes. Expectations rise with the type of bounties that come their way, whether a few hundred pesos for a lotto ticket, or a multi-million prize for boxing.

Ask and you shall receive. And we oblige all who ask because we foolishly think it boosts our social status. It’s all part of our tribal past, when the “big man” in a village had to build up followers and allies by throwing big feasts. The more elaborate and conspicuous, the better to show one’s power, and always one had to outdo the earlier displays of wealth.

How do we change all this? I know one extreme case where the wife of a returning seafarer would practically lock up her husband each time he returned home until he left again. She’d pretend to be naughty, saying that she wanted her husband all to herself, but her intentions were clear – securing him from people wanting loans.

I think we’ll just have to start with our own backyards, using less drastic ways. Generally, we need to promote an idea of social sharing of good fortune not in terms of extravagant blow-outs but of some kind of community or communal endeavor: like one pasalubong for the whole office, some kind of donation to the whole clan from a returning overseas worker, or gifts of social use of the community like books or new desks for a school.

It’s already started with balikbayans, and could set a new trend, hopefully. Let’s hope people will realize with time that it’s a good thing to want to share good fortune, but it’s better if, like that story in the New Testament, we multiply our blessings more times over before distributing it.