The Philippines and the Illusion of State-Created Heroes
Millions of Filipinos leave their country every year, not because of natural disasters or war, but because their government is unable, or more precisely unwilling, to provide decent jobs at home. According to the Philippine Statistics Authority, there were at least 2.19 million Filipino migrant workers in 2024, equivalent to 4% of the total Philippine labour force.
Overseas labour migration has become a vital part of the Philippine economy. These migrant workers are not only the backbone of families but also the country’s largest source of foreign exchange. Remittances from Filipino workers contributed approximately 7.3% of the Philippines’ Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in 2025, based on an article from the Philippine News Agency. This makes the Philippines one of the world’s largest and most significant senders of international labour, as claimed by the United Nations Network on Migration.
Amidst all these figures, something escapes the spotlight: millions of families who must endure years of separation, children growing up without parents, and partners ageing apart. They still leave, not out of choice, but because the state offers no other option. The question is no longer ‘why do they leave?’ but ‘who actually benefits from their departure?’
OFW and Bagong Bayani: A Title That Conceals Failure
OFW, or Overseas Filipino Workers, refers to all Filipino citizens working abroad for wages. Initially, OFWs were predominantly male, but over time, female workers have increased and now dominate; at least 57.2% of Filipino migrant workers were women in 2024. They mostly migrate to Saudi Arabia (22%), the United Arab Emirates (13%), and Hong Kong (6%) as the three largest recipient countries of OFWs.
This labour migration was initially claimed as a temporary solution during the Ferdinand Marcos administration. At that time, the Philippines was facing an economic crisis, high unemployment, and mounting foreign debt pressure. Sending workers to Middle Eastern countries began as a way to earn foreign exchange and ease domestic economic pressures.
When the incoming remittances proved substantial, the government did not use the momentum to build domestic industries. Instead, it chose the easier path: maintaining the tap of labour export. This policy was institutionalised through the Labour Code of 1974, then strengthened with the establishment of the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA) in 1982.
At its peak, President Corazon Aquino in 1988 launched a term that persists to this day: ‘Bagong Bayani’, or new heroes. The title sounds noble, but it needs to be read critically. A state that cannot create decent jobs, then calls its citizens who are forced to leave ‘heroes’, is a state wrapping its failure in medals.
Bagong Bayani as a Tool of State Legitimacy
The labour export policy that has persisted since the Marcos Sr. era has been continued by successive administrations without significant pause. Except in 2016, when President Rodrigo Duterte spoke out before Filipino migrant workers in Japan: ‘Ang pagtrabaho n’yo sa ibang bansa, hasta diyan na lang. The next generation will be working in the Philippines.’ He dreamed that the next generation would only go abroad for holidays, not to work.
But that dream was never translated into real policy. His administration instead maintained and strengthened the infrastructure for sending workers abroad. This is not ordinary irony. It is a reflection of how the Bagong Bayani narrative works: it is not a sincere honour, but a tool of legitimisation. The state frames its citizens’ departure as a heroic act so it does not have to answer the more fundamental question: why they had to leave in the first place.
From administration to administration, instead of building domestic employment, what has been continuously built are institutions to facilitate the sending of workers abroad, from the 1974 Labour Code and POEA to the Department of Migrant Workers (DMW). The state is highly adept at managing the departure of its citizens but has never been serious enough about preventing the need to leave.
What makes this even more bitter is the type of work the majority of OFWs take. According to the International Labour Organization (ILO) classification, most fall into the elementary occupation category, low-paid physical and routine jobs such as cleaning buildings, transporting goods, or manual labour in the construction and manufacturing sectors. This is not because they lack education, but because even higher education does not change the reality that domestic wages remain far too low to compete.
Education Designed for Export, Not for Nation-Building
Decades of normalising migration have seeped into the Philippine education system, transforming it from within. Educational institutions and vocational training programmes have gradually adjusted their curricula not to the needs of domestic industry, but to the demands of the international labour market. In other words, the Philippines is not producing a workforce to build its own nation. The Philippines is producing human export products.
As a result, the Philippines now faces an ironic crisis: a country that continuously sends workers abroad is actually experiencing shortages in its own critical sectors such as STEM, healthcare, and aviation (Mendoza, 2015).
In the healthcare sector, the numbers speak loudly enough. A first-year resident doctor’s salary in the Philippines is only around USD 12,260 per year, while their counterparts in the United States can earn USD 51,078 per year. For nurses, the gap is even more extreme.