Milpitas, California 2006
Well, it is March 24th 2006 and right now I am in Milpitas, California. For those who have no idea about the location of Milpitas, it is in the south eastern corner of what you may have heard called "Silicon Valley". If you're still not clear then here is a map from MapQuest that shows Milpitas and many of the better known surrounding cities.
There are a variety of reasons for leaving the Philippines and coming here. One of the reasons at the top of the list is because many companies were pretty much outright refusing to consider giving work to anyone who was in the Philippines. Their rationale seemed to be that there was too much political instability in the area. That viewpoint was further legitimized thanks to the temporary state of emergency that was declared about a month ago and lasted an entire four days.
So by being in California those companies no longer can use their previous line of reasoning. In fact, I have already had a number of inquiries and gone to two interviews for positions which can be performed in a full telecommute capacity if desired. All this with me having been here for less than 48 hours so far.
Not to go into rant mode but I do feel sorry for the Philippines in general. They have a very open press but it seems like the foreign media outlets only pick up on the bad news items. Of course, that is how the news agencies work, especially in the United States but the Philippines does seem to me to take more than the average beating. That focus on negative news blurbs then harms the Philippines in it's attempts to increase foreign investments and stability resulting in a vicious cycle.
Not to point fingers at any particular country but I don't understand is how countries like India manage to avoid the same beatings given to the Philippines. To make my point lets compare the two countries...
India has a hostile neighbor to the north with both parties armed with nuclear weapons and they have frequent military skirmishes... it has things such as hundreds of beheadings not to mention innumerable other punishments for "witchcraft" and similar offenses per year ordered by tribal courts... it has it's own Muslim and other militant fringe groups causing an insurgency against those of other religions and political persuasion... a huge percentage of it's population lives in abject poverty... millions of citizens are HIV positive... only 60% of it's population can read and write... and is the world's largest illegal opium producer...
The Philippines on the other hand does have a couple of minor disagreements with neighboring countries but no conflicts... at times outlying villages will take justice into their own hands for things such as murder and rape but this is very infrequent and I have never heard of anyone ever being executed for bizarre things such as "witchcraft"... it does have its own militant groups and insurgency like India but actually on a smaller scale... and the number of HIV cases are in the thousands, not millions... there are slums in the cities but nothing to compare to those found in India and the per capita income of individuals is 150% of that found in India... not to mention that almost 93% of Filipinos are literate... and its biggest drug problem is not production and distribution but instead foreign entities trying to use it as a transport hub for their illegal trade...
Again, this isn't a "pick on India" rant. I am just using it as a reference to compare a country that is getting lots of business from North America and the United States while the Philippines has to struggle because of a focus on bad press. This despite all of the huge pluses on the side of the Philippines. Ah well... if someone can explain this to me please do because I really cannot understand it. The reason I don't understand it is that I didn't make any of it up. Almost all of the information that I gave in the two comparison paragraphs is from U.S. records including public items available on sites such as the CIA Factbook.
Ok... back out of rant mode. ;-)
