A Pinoy story for the new year. A fair-skinned man slid on the chair beside Rodrigo as the sun hid among century-old houses and birds chirped from slender trees lining an al-fresco café here. The breath he held escaped Rodrigo’s lips: immediately he knew the man is Filipino and may bring good news as Spain grapples with a debt crisis and migrant workers find solace in places like the Bracafe coffee shop. At this haunt, which serves brewed Brazilian coffee at Ronda Sant Antoni in Barcelona’s Paloma district, jobless migrant Filipino workers have found an informal base to trade information. “It’s calm drinking coffee here,” said Rodrigo, not his real name, who has been nursing his cup since 3 p.m., nearly 90 minutes ago. A young camarero (waiter) flicked an eye on the cup but waved at Rodrigo who he may have recognized as a regular customer. Ever since Rodrigo was laid off months ago also as a camarero of another restaurant, he’s been a mainstay at Bracafe. He said doing so has made him forget the 10 years of working as a waiter and his current employment status. “Do I look worried? This is rest time for me.” His wife Aleta patted his hand and asked him to face up, which Rodrigo did, admitting he’s been on a lookout for a hosteleria job that a fellow Filipino may refer. It’s Aleta who’s “slightly worried.” She said they have to pay for a condominium unit back in Manila. “That’s our investment for the future,” said Aleta, who’s currently working sa bahay, or cleaning homes. The Filipino beside them stood up and handed a piece of paper to Rodrigo. He introduced himself as Luisitio Santos and says he overheard the conversation and offers the name of the tapas store at the Port of Barcelona. “Try this out. Maybe you can get that job I passed off,” Luisito said and went back to reading a newspaper and his coffee. After saying thanks, Rodrigo grew silent and may have gone to limning the future when Spain’s debt problem impacts foreigners like him. Local media has written about queues getting longer at job centers or Oficina de Empleo and of the shrinking purchasing power of the employed due to inflation as signs a storm is brewing and foreign workers are in its eye. Fiesta in siesta Look at them, Rodrigo said, nodding to the direction of Filipinos playing with their children at a nearby park. “They’re like me, like us, waiting for somebody to cast a helping hand or throw some leads,” he added. Luisito dragged his chair closer and joined Rodrigo and his wife under the maroon umbrella on the coffeetable’s center. “Filipinos here are survivors,” said Luisito, who works as a supermarket electrician and, like Rodrigo, also frequents Bracafe. “They love their work here.” Luisitio said that there’s no sense worrying about the crisis in the world’s eighth-largest economy. We can’t do anything about it, he added. “Besides, we have fellow Pinoys backing us up.” Indeed, Rodrigo said it was through Filipinos he learned about the paro, Spain’s unemployment insurance handed out monthly up to two years until the jobless worker gets a new job. If Filipinos are permanent residents here in Spain and they get displaced, the paro’s their savior. While he earned over €1,300 from his former restaurant job, Rodrigo’s monthly paro stands at just above a thousand euros since he availed of it 10 months ago. For those wanting to find new jobs, Filipino workers here give leads. That’s what the Ilocanos do, with members of the hometown group Timpuyog ti Ilocano (roughly, unity of Ilocanos) referring provincemates to some restaurants and hotels (or hosteleria) needing workers—even at reduced rates from what Filipinos usually get in the past. Other job referrals are for domestic work, which gives an hourly rate of €8.50. If Filipinos do domestic work as fija (residing outside of the Spanish family’s home), the situation enables them to shop for other Spanish households to work for. Given the connections Filipinos here have with Spanish households, work “sa bahay”—which Filipinos here refer to babysitting or cleaning residential homes—operates like a bustling informal market awaiting Filipino takers. “I get €200 monthly,” said Ilocano Arlene Rallojay, for taking care of babies. “At least I have weekends off,” said the former camarero who was displaced together with two other Filipinos and a Moroccan last January. It is in these Bracafe sorties where Filipinos learn of other ways to stay employed. Like that of Ernesto Gallano, a camarero at Bar Yanco in the famous tourist strip of La Rambla. While he and a fellow non-Filipino worker stayed on there after two other fellow workers got booted out, Gallano is getting €1,700 monthly. But not without a price, especially by doing extra tasks that the two other displaced coworkers used to do. “At least I get more tips from customers,” said the 57-year-old. Some others, especially those living on paro, take the risk and do home-based work such as babysitting and cleaning homes. However, Daniel Tuaño of the Filipino group Asociacion Filipina de Escritores e Investigadores en España (Philippine Association of Writers and Researchers in Spain) said getting extra income while on paro is not allowed and may be detrimental to other migrant workers’ lot. Hold the beef Tapas stores lining up the 1.2-km city sidewalk called La Rambla (in the heart of Barcelona) still have bountiful customers, as locals and tourists in the city seem upbeat even amid an unusually hot weather (28°C) last spring. Tourism, one of Spain’s economic trump cards, seems to remain alive and well. The government said it eyes a million more tourists this year to add up to the over-53 million recorded last year. But there’s something hidden in La Rambla’s throng of people: one out of five workers here is jobless. In the first quarter of this year, they were said to be over 4.3 million, or 2.13 percent of the labor force. And many jobless workers have paro. This has been the basis for some analysts to say that Spain’s nearing membership in the “piggery,” composed of crisis-stricken countries Portugal, Ireland and Greece. Spain’s own mortgage crisis is as murky as a muddy pigpen, these analysts said. Job cuts were also mind-boggling as 130,000 jobless were recorded in the first two months of the year. Most of the unemployed came from the services sector, like camareros and employees of hotels and pension inns. “It has also been tough now for my employer to borrow money from the bank,” said Filipino camarero Bong Carreon, who resigned from his work given his restaurant’s layoffs and the additional responsibilities he got from the laid-off co-workers. Not surprisingly, Filipino remittances from Spain went down in 2010 to $69.776 million, from $81.805 million in 2009, according to Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas data. The slide was attributed to the $66.006 million land-based Filipino migrants in Spain sent in 2010, which was lower by $11.641 million from 2009 figures. While the majority of Filipinos earn below €1,999 monthly, according to a recent survey by the Philippines-headquartered Scalabrini Migration Center, some Filipino workers here in Barcelona have brought their families with them and remit less frequently to loved ones in the Philippines. Philippine Consul General to Barcelona Eduardo de Vega also said the Spanish government has also stopped labor arrangements with some developed countries, including the Philippines, to hire workers for specific occupations. Yet life goes on for the Filipinos here. Echoing billionaire Bill Gates, Rodrigo mused: “In real life, people have to leave the coffee shop and go to jobs.” Source:- http://www.abs-cbnnews.com/global-f...uro-crisis-pinoy-bayanihan-brews-spanish-café
