Friday, December 28, 2018

A New Concept Of Sending Packages To Another Country

By Douglas Mitchell


People sometimes migrate to look for greener pastures. This is especially true in countries where job opportunities are few or the pay is just too low. One particular country has been very successful in exporting workers. These often become resident aliens in another country and stay there for a long time. When they return home they bring with them present for family and friends using a concept call balikbayan box padala.

Filipinos have a knack of bringing home some delicacies from other places of the country which they travel to. It is also common during celebrations for the host to give excess food to attending relatives for them to bring home. This is a tradition that is culturally deeply rooted in this nation. The corrugated carton box is the culmination of this tradition.

This habit used to happen only in this particular country where there are several islands. It is an archipelagic nation composed of more than seven thousand islands and islets. These are three main geographic divisions namely, Luzon, Visayas, and Mindanao. Although this is largely a Christian country, the southern island has a large Muslim population.

This state is a polyglot one. It has several linguistic dialects almost in each of the islands. Despite three hundred years of Spanish colonialization, these dialects are still being actively spoken to this day, only very few can actually speak Spanish. This unlike in contiguous lands that were conquered by Spain where local dialects were totally eliminated and Spanish is now the main language.

The cultural influences were brought to other places where Filipino workers migrated to in seeking more viable job opportunities in the United States. The influx started with the shortage of professional nurses during the early seventies which the Philippines had plenty of. This started a trend of educational mass production of nurses. Often these workers are granted permanent residency status.

Filipinos are fond of sending items to their relatives and sometimes they schedule to return to home visits bringing along with them items as presents for friends and relatives. For those working inside the United States, these are placed inside what is called a balikbayan box. It is loosely translated or literally as repatriate boxes. The place an assortment of things inside this box and bring it with them to the Philippines.

Three hundred years of Spanish rule and fifty years of American occupation has made an impact on the Filipino psyche. The influence can no more be as opposite as black and white. It is like a mixture of oil and water. We are talking about hard religious fanaticism married to Hollywood liberalism. This unique trait made the government legislated laws for that made taxes and customs duties affordable to workers from abroad.

This novel concept came about as a recognition of the immense contribution the overseas employees have made to the economy in dollar remittances. There was a point in time when professional manpower supply became the major export of this state. This program was severely affected in the wake of the nine eleven terrorist attacks.

In its own way, it is a very unique type of package. This is only being done by one country as an expression of gratitude to the efforts of its overseas workers. But as in other places, these are sometimes subjected to pilferage when it goes through the bureau of customs or the postal service. It altogether is not uncommon to hear complaints of items being missing.




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