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"Immigration within Asia: Case of the Yakuza"
By
Rawlein G. Soberano, Ph.D. |
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In 1999 the Japan Immigration Bureau reported a total of 84,767 Filipino arrivals to Japan. By last count, the number went up to 93,165. The Philippine Embassy admitted it is not easy to get an accurate count of the actual number since the majority of the workers are "entertainers" who come and go under a three-month or six-month contracts.
Many Filipinos are recruited to work as entertainers or GROs (great relations officers). Once put to work in a club, oftentimes owned or protected by the Yakuza, they are forced to go out with customers under threat of punishment and have sex with them. The girls are held captive under lock and key when not doing their "tricks."
From official Japanese statistics, there were 166,767 Filipinos in 1999. The number is broken down into 115,685 registered aliens; 36,379 with expired visas; and 84,767 new arrivals, minus 70,064 for the entire year. A good proportion are women. Of the 115,685 no less than 98,103 were female. In the same year, about 46,000 entertainers are OPAs (Overseas Performing Artists) entered Japan.
By November 2000, that figure has soared to 53,997. The less flattering term so relished by journalists is Japazuki. The OPAs are mostly singers and dancers (hostesses), employed in clubs and hotel function rooms all over the country. It is a no-dream job and replete with serious risks, sometimes resulting in disability or even death. Most come from poor families, but some, from middle-class families, including a number of not so successful movie starlets. They take a big chance but they keep coming.
The Yakuza are as brutal and merciless as any criminal organization on earth, but they make no effort to appear legitimate in Japanese society. For years they have made an effort to appear chivalrous, tracing their roots to the original folk heroes of the past. These Machiyokko (servants of the town) were enshrined in legend as fighting the tyranny and impositions of the fierce landlords and warlords, the daimyos dating back to the 1600s.
The modern gangsters are actually gurentai or hoodlums, whose postwar emergence led to their assembling themselves into yakuza brotherhoods. The name is said to be derived from a card combination in gambling (8, 9 and 5 or ya-ku-za) since the yakuza started out as gambling syndicates, then went on in other rackets including drugs, prostitution and extortion.
In ancient times, the gamblers were originally fielded by the shoguns or military dictators to fleece laborers of their pay and return the money to the treasuries of the warlords. The slick artists were known as bakuto. They were the ones who introduced tattooing and cutting off fingers (yubitsume) as a sign of apology to the "boss" for mistakes or failures. Their bosses or family heads style themselves as Oyabun, in an effort to put themselves on par with the old daimyos or lords, and the street-level gang members, sometimes termed chimpira (pricks) were supposed to be their "samurai."
There are reportedly over 150 Yakuza members affiliated in 2,000 gangs which themselves belong to a dozen or so conglomerates. The largest family is the Yamaguchi-gumi based in Osaka and Kobe in the Kansai area, while Tokyo is dominated by the Sumiyoshi-renge. In recent years the Yakuza have established close links with the Chinese triads or secret societies, the American and Italian Mafia, and the Cali Cartel. They are still not in bed with the Russian Mafia, but that is coming. Like the Mafia, they have different levels of authority under their godfather, called oyabun, or sometimes kumicho (supreme boss). The underbosses are called stateigashira, and each headquarter chief is called hombucho.
The lively district of Ikebukuro in Tokyo is known for fashion and boasts the tallest building in the city, the "Sunrise." Ikebukuro is also a haunt of the Yakuza whose foot soldiers conceal their giveaway tattoos by sporting two or three piece suits, although their artificially cured hair or chiseled brush-cut, sharp white suits and white potent leather pumps, always give them away. They also love to drive huge American cars and are usually the ones on the street wearing dark or smoked glasses.
They dwarf the American Mafia in numbers. With less than half the population of the US, the Yakuza's 150,000 members make the 2,000 American Mafiosi look like a smalltime organization. Yakuza enterprises, including legitimate ones (like the Yamaguchi-gumi's legitimate Kobe-based corporation, Yamaki and the gang-operated art galleries, real estate firms, and financial consultancy companies) net an annual income of about $50 billion. Their profits could easily put them above the Fortune 500.
Unlike the Mafia, the Cali Cartel or the Chinese Triads, you will find Yakuza headquarters in various cities neatly listed in the telephone book. Some of them even hand out calling cards. They are "businessmen" in the matrix of corporate Japan. In the 1995 earthquake which devastated the port city of Kobe, the Yakuza were among the first to appear on the scene and rush food, relief supplies and bottled water to the victims and dazed residents in the immediate aftermath of the cataclysm. For weeks they maintained first-aid stations, water-supply, food depots and welfare services. That was a typical Yakuza public relations undertaking.
But make no mistake; they are thugs and killers. Several years ago, the famous movie director Juzo Itami (known for his international hits, Tampopo and A Taxing Woman) produced a motion picture called Minabo no Onona (known in the US by its American title, "The Sweet Science of Japanese Extortion"). It was a thinly-disguised dig at the Yakuza, although Itani might have intended it merely as a kind of morality play and a send-up on Japanese society.
The press, on the other hand, seized on it as a wake-up call to fight the Yakuza. Itami's press release was what finally irked them. It said, "Nowadays everybody is afraid of the Yakuza. People drop their eyes to avoid confronting a Yakuza. Those forced to deal with the Yakuza have their pride trampled. I cannot forgive the Yakuza for the way they threaten and humiliate society. Through Minabo no Onona, I want people to know that they can fight the Yakuza and win."
That was the last straw, Itami was ambushed outside his Tokyo home. The local Goto-gumi sent its hitmen to do the job. Television news crews, rushing to the scene, got live footage of the wounded artist being brought to the hospital. Itami was undaunted. His face "dramatically" bandaged, he appeared on TV to make another public appeal to the citizenry to combat and stop Yakuza terror. The film's box office success, however, did not stop the Yakuza. They are still everywhere, including many countries in Asia.
It is not only entertainers who are drawn to Japan. Japanese firms and the regional branches of international financial companies also hire Filipino engineers, skilled workers and information technology (IT) professionals. Japan is on an IT kick, but is hampered by lack of widespread knowledge and usage of English. This is where Filipinos come in handy. These Filipino "knowledge workers" can be found in Okinawa, doing projects for Japanese corporations doing business with US bases there.
Although Japan's immigration policy bans the acceptance of ordinary workers in non-skilled or low-skill categories, such as laborers in the service industries, e.g. waiters and waitresses, personnel from the Philippines and other countries still manage to land jobs there, legally or illegally.
What makes working in Japan, whatever the hardships or risks, attractive, is pay. The highest minimum daily wage, which one receives in Tokyo, is 5,559 yen, or roughly $55. The lowest wage scales are found in Aomori, Akita and Miyuzuki Prefectures, but salaries there still come to 4,795 yen, or $48. In Metro Manila, workers still labor under the minimum wage of just over 200 pesos, or $5 daily. At the worst, a Filipino worker in Japan can expect ten times more pay.
The Japanese authorities are trying to crack down on the hiring of so-called low-skill laborers. In February 2000, the immigration law was amended making overstaying and illegal work a more serious offense, imposing stiffer penalties for both employees and those who employ them. This move generated much alarm, but the anticipated massive exodus never took place.
The most interesting and potentially far-reaching aspect of the Filipino influx into Japan is the large number of marriages, usually between Filipino women and Japanese men, thereby increasing the number of Japanese-Filipino children. In 1999 alone, there were 6,515 marriages between Filipinos and Japanese. The figure has remained above the 6,000 mark since 1995. The Japanese Ministry of General Affairs reported 5,265 births from these unions in 1998 alone.
This trend is the national offshoot of an entertainment industry which deploys Filipino women to Japan in substantial numbers. The long-term consequences of this would be a very interesting area of future study. This could be the beginning of the end of the vaunted myth of a homogeneous Japan today coping with the stresses of an increasingly multinational society. But Japan remains a mysterious and unpredictable land. It is a nation that keeps her secrets jealously shrouded in shadow behind the glare of neon lights.
Rawlein G. Soberano, Ph.D.
Germantown, MD
www.aabronline.org (new)
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