By Michael Alan Hamlin.
In the romantic comedy Maid in Manhattan starring Jennifer Lopez, a lowly maid in a five-star New York hotel lives a Cinderella-like fairy tale. Dressing up in clothes left behind in a room she is cleaning – as a lark – presents the opportunity to meet – and be appreciated by – a wealthy hotel guest played by Ralph Fiennes. The wealthy guest is swept off his feet, and a romance ensues.
In the no-so-romantic comedy, Maid in the Philippines, 170,000 domestic helpers from the Philippines who work in Hong Kong – and represent a whopping 71 percent of all domestic helpers in the former colony – get robbed by both Hong Kong chief executive Tung Chee-hwa
and Philippine president Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo. Tung, desperate to rein in a growing budget deficit, slashed minimum monthly wages for domestic helpers last week and turned their lost earnings into a tax his government will collect from the maids’ employers.
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