Most Filipino maids fresh from the 'barrio'

FILIPINA 9th grader Ethel Tungohan (letter, South China Morning Post, February 1) can be forgiven for not realising that people in Hong Kong are bored stiff over reports of abuse of Filipino servants.

She seems unaware that Sri Lankans, Thai and Pakistani migrant workers are similarly exploited. Why? Because they prefer to work like slaves here than to starve in their impoverished countries.

As a Chinese 10th grader who has lived in the Philippines, I'm tired of hearing Filipinos repeating the tale about 'most Filipinos here are literate, educated and knowledgeable'. This is a myth, because if anyone took a poll of the 150,000 Filipina maids here, one would find that most of them are fresh from the barrio and barely out of grade school.

Just because a few of the women have college degrees obtained from some Philippine diploma mill doesn't mean they're all geniuses.

If they were, they wouldn't be here allowing themselves to be maltreated.

It's obvious Filipinos labour under a great inferiority complex because they keep on declaring their 'pride' in being Filipino. Few Chinese, Japanese or Europeans go about trumpeting their national pride, obviously because they aren't ashamed of having most of their population slaving abroad.