By Jane Rickards The China Post 2005/9/26
Foreign workers yesterday celebrated National Migrants' Sunday with dances, inspired singing and a visit from the highest-level Catholic official in the Philippines, Archbishop Gaudencio Rosales.
The event organized by the Catholic Church and held at the Dominican International School drew thousands: nuns dressed in pale blue sat next to Filipino women who cooled themselves in the humidity with black and white lace fans, Indonesians clothed in speckled batik and Vietnamese workers mixed with the predominantly Filipino crowd. There were also Taiwanese government officials and even a few Canadian English teachers who said they came along for the singing and atmosphere.
The theme of the day was intercultural integration. "The purpose of celebrating National Migrants' Sunday is to bring awareness of the contribution of migrants to local society," said organizer Father Romeo Velos of St Christopher's Catholic Church in Taipei.
"Migrants are also people and they have their needs," he said. "Local society, government leaders, the whole country ... should provide ways and means so that their dignity and rights are reflected."
Archbishop Rosales of the Archdiocese of Manila said in an interview that international movements of people were not just problems associated with developing countries. "Motion is the world's problem," he said. "Even well-established and well-advanced nations, they keep moving as tourists, as industrialists, sometimes even from terrorism," he said.
The archbishop described migration as a social issue that was becoming prominent in the modern world. "All of us are in motion, especially today with the new technology and travel," he said. "(We) are going from one place to another seeking better conditions of life, assuring us of a better livelihood which is not available in the home country."
Archbishop Rosales, who has visited Taiwan many times, said yesterday was his first time to visit Taiwan after he was appointed Archbishop of Manila in 2003. He said he thought overall Filipino workers were happy in Taiwan. "You put the Filipino anywhere and their culture says they will adjust," he said. "But certainly (there are) times when they prefer to stay home where their families are," he said.
The day began with Archbishop Rosales celebrating Holy Mass in the morning. His co-celebrants included the Charge d' Affaires of the Embassy of the Holy See (Taiwan's Vatican ambassador) Monsignor Ambrose Madtha and Archbishop Joseph Cheng of the Archdiocese of Taipei. This was followed by an interfaith service.
After this, the International Community Radio Taipei (ICRT) AsiaNation host Tito Gray Gleason and Malu Tung hosted an afternoon of performances from local migrant groups. Nearly all the crowd stood up from their seats, clapped and cried for more when Archbishop Rosales got up on stage and sang: :"You are my sunshine, my only sunshine..." Father Velos and a female dancer performed a traditional Filipino dance of skipping and stamping between two moving horizontal bamboo poles manipulated by other dancers, with further cheers and whoops from the crowd.
To test the migrant workers' awareness of their rights in Taiwan, a group copied the format of a popular Filipino television quiz show "Game Ka Na Ba" as they asked the audience to pick the right answer to questions such as: "Under the Council of Labor Affairs, how much service fees can agencies or brokers collect within a period of three years?"
Live pop music from the St Christopher Church Band of Taipei also rocked the auditorium. Father Velos said the turnout had been much higher than he expected. But the crowd was mainly Filipino, despite the event targeting all migrant workers in Northern Taiwan. "The other foreign workers are not Catholic, maybe why they are not so interested," Father Velos said.
Still, an Indonesian woman in batik, yellow and red scarves floating from her waist, got up on stage and performed a graceful dance with a theme of riding a horse. Filipino Dem Chua, operations head for remittance service iRemit said she thought the event was fun.
"It an opportunity for all the Filipinos to meet together, to be one," she said. "It gives us a sense of internationalism and its a kind of event to remember our own home in the Philippines." The event drew migrant workers mainly from Taipei and Ilan county. Other Taiwan cities, such as Kaohsiung, also held similar celebrations.