Somewhere in between my hopes and dreams is my need to survive, which means I am one of many writers hungry for gigs. If you’ve ever tried applying to content mills or posting professional profiles for the chance to get noticed, you’d know that it is never a one-two done step. Some companies that reach out to you ignore the references and years of experience by sending you assessments. Others would ask you to write samples instead of going through your portfolio.
Another argument was, “They have better education over there, so of course they’d be paid more.” I have a Bachelor’s degree in Communication. Most Filipino writers are degree holders in similar fields. To be a freelance writer overseas, you don’t even have to go to college. And it’s not like them being foreign proves that they are more knowledgeable in the simplest requirements of writing, like good grammar. The Philippines ranksLet’s break down the system that’s in play for us.
I am inclined to believe that at least once in your career , you were taught to be small because of race, appearance, gender, educational background, beliefs etc. Historically, us Filipinos have made ourselves small to “welcome” colonizers, thus experiencing racism in our own country. However, I believe fate creates patterns in order for people to recognize them and break them. Generations before me have tolerated this system and passed it on.
I am aware that not everybody has the same privilege to reject work. When I began as a freelancer, I took on “piso per word” projects. Three years in, I make enough to reject low-paying jobs. And since the economy has changed, I expected the “piso per word” standard to change as well. But it hasn’t. In fact, some rates are now significantly lower. The system is broken, and more and more writers now believe that the solution is to become even smaller.