As an OFW working here in Kuwait, I have heard about Kuwaitization but it doesn’t bother me so much because first of all, the Kuwaitization program hasn’t extended to national degree and only involves some big companies. Secondly, I know for sure that Kuwait will not survive without the foreign expatriates including Filipinos. Leaving them on their own to sustain their economy will be a disaster.

We have heard about Kuwaitization, Emiratization, Omanization and Qatarization but one thing that will surely grab our attention is the revival of the Saudization. This is nothing new and has been implemented for years and was recently being pushed through – again -  because of the surge of unemployment among locals. But knowing that Saudi Arabia is the biggest employer of Overseas Filipino Workers in an estimated 1.3 million OFWs, should this be a cause for alarm? Are we OFWs threatened?

According to the leader of the “Saudi Arabia is only for Saudis”, the Labor Ministry should strictly enforce the Labor Law which states that employment is the right of every Saudi national and local employers should only hire foreign expatriates in “rare specializations.”

However, many believe that the revival of Saudization will not have an impact among Filipino migrant community which are mostly coming from construction, health care and household services. First, only few Saudi nationals are qualified for the jobs that are already held by foreign expatriates. So, can they fill the gap?

Secondly, Saudi nationals can’t imagine life without Filipinos. One Arab journalist wrote an article last year entitled “Imagine a world without Filipinos.” He said that Saudi employers depend so much on Filipinos that living without them would be very difficult. “Disaster would happen,” according to him. ” We could die a slow death if Filipinos chose to leave us,” he added. Another Saudi employer in Jeddah also said that losing Filipinos is like losing his limbs.

How should our government react regarding this issue? Should they still be confident enough that OFWs in Saudi Arabia will not be affected by this so-called revival of Saudization policy and maintain no action? Imagine if this Saudization will be successfully carried on by the KSA government, what will happen to hundreds of thousands of OFWs who will be possibly affected?

Maybe it is time for the government to act now or else, we will be caught off-guard by these developments in the future. Relying only on deploying Filipino workers on other countries and depending on their remittances as a solution to our economic challenges may not be the best idea.

Another interesting topic here is what are we, Filipinos, doing in order to maintain the positive outlook that other nationalities have on us? How are we maintaining our advantages while competing against other foreign workers? Saudi employers enumerated some reasons why they like Filipinos and it is up for us, individual Filipinos, to act on it by maintaining these plus factors or enhance it even more.

Fluency in English. (This may be our advantage years back but on my personal opinion, our fluency and competency in English is fast declining. Our education program has steadily declined over the years and our teachers are leaving the country to teach and work abroad.)

Technical training in the early stages of education. (We are still world-class when it comes to technical competency. We owe it to the fact that our trade schools still produce world-class and highly-competitive technical and skilled professionals. I just hope that the competitiveness of our technical vocational and trade schools will not be affected by the tempt of commercialization.)

Early education at home with family as primary trainer and motivator. (A tree will bears its own fruit. An apple tree will not give you mangoes but of course – apples. Filipinos are known to be family-oriented individuals. I just hope that Filipino parents continue feeding them of valuable lessons of life. Doing this will mean upbringing responsible Filipino individuals and positive role-models for the local community and to the whole world.)

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