HOMe maid picnics

After losing their picnic spot to a shopping mall, Filipino maids in continue to return to ’s in-between spaces

TEXT BY JUSTIN ZHUANG PHOTOS BY SAM KANG LI HOME MAID PICNICS

t looks like a great spot for a picnic. their salaries. Some might then visit a The huge trees shelter Rovelyn Fronda disco, while others like Orlina picnic and her friends from this sweltering around the vicinity with friends. heat as they sit around a red chequered The former park above Orchard mat sprawling with Tupperware of food. MRT station was where most Filipino Tucking into various Filipino delicacies maids used to picnic, she recalls. A such as adobo (stewed chicken), paksiw large open grassy ground sheltered by Inab angus (fish in milky vinegar sauce) huge trees, the park was a welcome and pansit (bee hoon), the ladies change from the four walls of their chatter and giggle away, oblivious to the employer’s home – a freedom commotion around them. expressed in the community’s name A bustling crowd shuffle by with for the place, ‘Golong Golong’ or shopping bags in tow, their rhythm Tagalog for ‘Rolling Rolling’, explains matched by the incessant drone from the Orlina. cars driving by the ever-busy Orchard But in 2007, construction began Road. Towering above the ladies on one on the 1.8ha site to build Singapore’s side is Lucky Plaza Shopping Centre. latest shopping extravaganza. As part On the other, a giant poster of a fashion of the government’s plan to rejuvenate model for Guess gazes at them, as if this city’s shopping district, ION scrutinizing the cheaper clothes they are Orchard, an eight-storey shopping dressed in. mall was recently opened on the Their clothes may be cheap, but the former park. ladies take care to keep them clean. The closure of ‘Golong Golong’ Those not sitting on the mat are instead on portable stools or flyers – anything to protect them from the grey-tiled pedestrian walkway they are on. On any other day, this would be a quiet lead up to Mount Elizabeth Hospital, but every Sunday, this walkway is lined on both sides with groups of Filipino maids like Rovelyn and her ON THE COVER: friends. “We eat, play, chit-chat with A typical picnic is filled with Filipino delicacies friends… most of the time we just sit and more that was down here and relax,” says the 31-year- prepared in the wee old, even as waves of traffic jams and hours in the morning of crowds continue to descend upon the their off day. edges of her oasis.

THE ‘GOLONG’ GOOD TIMES Choked full with remittance centres and shops like Pasay Grocery and Pinoy Shoppers that stock goods from the Philippines, it is no wonder Lucky Plaza is the first stop for Filipino maids on their off days. In fact, according to Orlina who has worked in Singapore as a maid for 15 years, the community regard this shopping mall as the “Filipino Centre”. MOVING OUT: The building of the A maid’s off day, usually only once shopping mall ION Orchard over a a month on a Sunday, is spent around picnic spot that was popular with the Lucky Plaza. After attending church in Filipino maids has forced them to find the morning, they come here to remit new spaces in the vicinity to relax.

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forced the maids to look for other spaces barricades came up, the plaza now to hang out. One was the neighbouring remains empty even while the maids walkway between and huddle along the walkway. . But a year after they moved Similarly, on the other side along in, barricades that read “PRIVATE Lucky Plaza, its management puts PROPERTY: NO THROUGH FARE, NO up laminated A4-sized signs on the LOITERING” were put up – only on row of lampposts every Sunday that every Sunday. read: “STRICTLY NO SITTING/ Some then moved on to an unkempt PICNICKING” and “NO WAITING AT ground behind ION Orchard, but many THIS POINT”. more moved across Orchard Road to this But the most obvious sign that the walkway along Lucky Plaza. “Now you Filipino maids are seen as a problem can see very crowded cause nowhere to are the A4-sized signs that barricade go,” says Orlina, She claims some of her the corridors of the shophouses friends come as early as 7am to reserve behind Lucky Plaza. Printed in a good spot to picnic on a 50-metre long Tagalog, they read: “PAKIUSAP: walkway that is wide enough to fit no BAWAL PO TUMAMBAY AT more than five people. MAGKALAT DITO (SALMAT PO…)”, a hostile warning to not picnic here or THEIR LAST FRONTIER it will be reported to the police. But it is not just the maids who go to The maids remaining oasis is lengths to mark their turf. this walkway, a strip of public space Along Tong Building, which the sandwiched between these private walkway sits right next to, barricades properties. But like ‘Golong Golong’, with a yellow sign that read: “PRIVATE a public park, one can never be too KEEPING OUT PROPERTY. SITTING ON THE PLAZA sure it will stay this way. OF SIGHT: As AREA IS NOT ALLOWED” protect its the malls try to empty plaza from the picnicking maids. NOWHERE ELSE TO GO keep the maids Its management declined to comment “For us, because only Sunday is out with security on the signs, but a worker in the building our off day, we have to find a place to patrols and who wished to remain anonymous, sit, just to rest and to meet up with unwelcoming says the barricades were only put up a friends,” says Rovelyn. Unlike most signs, they now year ago. He used to see maids picnic employees, maids have no home to huddle to picnic on the plaza. They often dirtied the return to rest when they are off work. at this walkway area with leftovers and sometimes, the The maids end up in Lucky Plaza, along Lucky guys, usually boyfriends of the maids, crowding the mall in such numbers Plaza Shopping would also get drunk and fight. Since the that “Sunday is Filipino Day,” says Centre.

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“Wherever we go they are chasing us away, so where can we stay?” ELSA, a maid who has worked here for three decades

a shopowner as she sat outside her Filipinos are less popular today, the POWER OF storefront watching them go by. Like total number of maids working in THE MASSES many other tenants who also declined to Singapore is still on the rise, hitting a (PREVIOUS): The be named, she laments how the maids high of 190, 000 last year. huge numbers of scare away customers because they are This has given some maids a Filipino maids who so noisy. Plus, there is always a long reason to voice out. “Filipino maids throng to Lucky queue to use the female toilet. started in Orchard Road because Plaza Shopping Thus, a year ago, the building’s we don’t have a specific place to Centre on Sundays management reserved the second-storey stay,” says Josie. For the maid who have given them toilets every Sunday just for tenants to has worked here for 11 years, her a voice as a use, she says. Plus, signs were also put up community deserves much more community. inside the mall to discourage the maids recognition. She compares the from loitering. Time and again, security situation here to Hong Kong where guards can also be spotted trying to herd maids are not only paid more but the maids away so that they don’t clog up have more space and rights thanks the seven-storey building. to the help from non-governmental Forced out of Lucky Plaza, some organisations. In fact, Josie thinks maids resort to sitting along the roadside the government here should do more kerb where they out-stretch the queue for them because all maids employed of taxis. Some also camp at the side incur a monthly levy of $265. entrance of neighbouring shopping mall But for other maids, the current CK Tang and others like Rovelyn and situation is not so bad. “We’re only Orlina picnic along this walkway just here on Sunday,” says 34-year-old across Lucky Plaza. Evalyn who is sitting on the walkway’s It is the most convenient location edge with her feet in the drain so for a picnic, both say. From here, the that there is enough space for her nearest picnic area at the Singapore friends.”We just want them not to Botanical Gardens is actually a half-an- chase us away from here.” hour bus-ride away. But for a maid who only has half a day left after church and errands, they cannot afford to waste such time because they have to return to their employer’s home by 7pm. “We got nowhere to go. And wherever we go they are chasing us away, so where can we stay?” says Elsa, a maid who has worked in Singapore for over a decade. The sheer numbers of them have only compounded this problem. In This is one of several stories from a 2007, some 80,000 Filipino maids were journalism project, RECLAIM LAND. You working in Singapore, making them the can read the other stories and see more largest nationality amongst the foreign photos at http://reclaimland.sg domestic workers population here. While

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