The death of PH labor and the dehumanization of the Filipino poor

A sensational story about the “yaya meal” in one of our better-known island-resorts off the Pacific challenges our long-held view of ourselves and compels us to inquire what has become of our society and our people. Like all rich people, the Filipino rich have more money than the rest, as we have long heard from the literary giants Ernest Hemingway and F. Scott Fitzgerald.

But the rich we know who are also practicing Christians try to live the spirit of poverty, and try to be egalitarian. They look to the poor as their equal, and at their own domestic staff as family members. Thus while the story about the island-resort serving a “yaya meal” to the “yayas” (nannies) seems to put their social class on the defensive, they probably have nothing to do with it at all.