I shouldn't tease. After all, this is one of the most difficult things to do and I don't even have the right solution. I will just speak from my experiences in this area.
Lately I have been meeting more and more locals, mothers like myself who have chosen to live without a live-in helper. We thus hire 'part-timers'. The woman who offered her services to me, for example, struck a deal with her solo businessman employer for her to get 'sideline' jobs. He didn't require her to hang around the house anyway, and he encouraged her to get the other jobs in order to earn more and keep sane.
So there is a category of helpers here who are hired by companies to keep house on a live-out basis for their expat staff. A helper can be minding up to 5 houses in one village per contract. Of course that also depends on how many men actually live in one house. It is also her choice how many houses to take on. Mostly the tasks are just cleaning, laundry and ironing. There is a little bit of cooking. There are two sub-categories. There is the helper who lives in one of the staff houses and takes care of around three. There is the helper who lives in the barangay and thus gets to be with her children. In most of my friends'opinions this seems a good situation for many of the women as they do not have to leave their children. They can go to school while she works nearby. Sadly, most of those I've met have 3 to 5 children just one year apart. Most of them also claim their husbands either do not earn much or are not employed.
I've also just recently learned that the tricycle fare from say, the Caltex gas station at the corner of the highway and Laguna blvd, to the barangay Inchican in Silang (towards Westgrove) costs Php 70 per head, in a shared tricycle. So most of the workers walk home. This is not a far distance, and we wonder if it has to do with the fact that the road traversed is within the Laguna Technopark's jurisdiction.
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