Pinoy workers ‘fearful’ of a Trump win invest in jewelry

By Alex P. Vidal

 

“Will the people in the cheaper seats clap your hands? And the rest of you, if you’ll just rattle your jewelry.”—John Lennon

 

FEARING their being “TNTs” (Tago Ng Tago) will again be reopened in heated anti-illegal immigration crackdowns once President Donald Trump will be reelected in the November 3 U.S. Presidential Election, some Filipino workers have started placing “hard-earned” money into a “safe investment”: gold jewelry.

“It’s fine if (Democratic Party candidate Joseph) Biden will win. We know he won’t run after the undocumented aliens. But if President Trump will be reelected, the ICE (U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement) will once again chase us like rats,” feared Richie, 44, a dishwasher in an Asian restaurant in Queens, New York City.

ICE has a mission to protect America from the cross-border crime and illegal immigration that threaten national security and public safety.

Richie, a former bible scholar in Lumban, Laguna, converted some of the cash he earned since working “under-the-table” in 2016 into a box of gold jewelry.

“If I will be deported (if President Trump would be reelected), at least all my hard-earned money is secured in my body,” Riche said in jest.

He went on a shopping spree and chalked up a total of $18,000 (P880,000) worth of gold necklaces, bracelets, and rings in August and September in at least three modest borough pawnshops.

 

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Richie emptied his savings and sent the cash to his family in the Philippines a month before Mr. Trump, 74, will attempt to win a pandemic-laced reelection bid against a 77-year-old challenger penciled to lead the Democratic Party juggernaut and change the political atmosphere in America based on the recent polls.

“I always think two steps ahead,” gushed Richie, a psychology graduate before becoming a part-time pastor in Laguna. “President Trump will be more motivated and emboldened to hunt down the illegal immigrants once he will be reelected like what he did during his win in 2016. It’s a promise he made to his base during the campaign.”

Armando, 51, of Murcia City, Negros Occidental, cajoled Richie to “secure your money” by investing in jewelry since Richie couldn’t open a bank account.

Armando left the Philippines nine years ago and is now a TNT like Richie.

He wears an 18-k gold necklace worth $6,000 (P294,000) and owns three other 22-k gold necklaces he kept in his apartment.

Armando purchased the jewelry from his earnings while working as a “bodega” chief in a private warehouse in Flushing.

“If I will be deported, at least I have money to start a small business (in the Philippines),” said Armando, who grew up outside the neighborhood of Murcia public market.

 

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Armando and Richie was able to convince another friend, a 46-year-old former public school teacher in Digos in Mindanao, who now works as a caregiver, to also dabble in jewelry investment.

The former school teacher targeted a white gold necklace worth $2,400 (P118,000) for his “first investment.”

“This is a good start,” he hissed.

Armando, Richie, and the former school teacher, was among the overstaying aliens who had been “alerted” in February 2017, or three months after Mr. Trump’s conquest of Hillary Clinton, where the newly elected Republican president had made a pre-election promise to deport illegal immigrants if he won the race to the White House.

Only those with criminal records, however, were nabbed during a series of ICE raids conducted mostly in Jackson Heights and Roosevelt Avenue where Richie and hundreds of TNTs were staying and working.

 

(The author, who is now based in New York City, used to be the editor of two dailies in Iloilo)