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DUBAI: Eric Roman struts on stage in his ripped jeans and grabs the mic.
It’s midnight on a Friday, and during normal hours, you’d hear wild applause from this crowded hotel bar in one of the old neighborhoods along the Dubai Creek. Sweaty crowds of fellow Filipinos, Arab businessmen and mall employees fresh off their shifts poured onto the dance floor as he sang Journey’s Don’t Stop Believin ‘with his nine-piece Filipino band.
But now the crowds, along with their bandmates, have disappeared, in compliance with coronavirus restrictions that prohibit dancing and limit the number of musicians on stage. Roman received a 65 percent pay cut when his club reopened after closing. Guitarists, bassists, and drummers weren’t so lucky.
“Dubai is dead,” said 40-year-old Roman. “Every day we wonder where we are going to get our next meal, our next glass of water, how we are going to survive in this city.”
Philippine entertainment bands have long been buzzing Dubai’s nightlife, satisfying the appetite for rock, R&B and pop that has grown with the emirate’s expat population. Now, as the pandemic silences the city’s live music scene and hits its economy, hundreds of Filipino artists are struggling to survive.
Itinerant Filipino house bands rose to prominence in the early 20th century during the US occupation of the archipelago. Filipinos, who are already well acquainted with Western church music and the military anthems of three centuries of Spanish imperialism, skillfully learned the latest American musical trends, from jazz to rock ‘n’ roll, said Mary Lacanlale, assistant professor of Music Studies Asia and the Pacific. at California State University Dominguez Hills.
At the turn of the century, karaoke was a national pastime. Filipino artists, with an uncanny ability to imitate western music legends, became a mainstay of nightclubs in emerging entrepôts in Asia and the Persian Gulf. Dubai attracted legions of Filipino cover bands to fuel its rapid transformation from a desert pearl port to the regional party capital.
“Our music builds Dubai’s reputation as a place that transcends political, racial and geographical divisions,” said Paul Cortes, the Philippine Consul General in Dubai, who is also a singer.
An uncertain fate now awaits the musicians, drawn from impoverished provinces to work in smoke-filled salons and hotel bars abroad.
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“The agents promise you heaven and they will give you hell,” said AJ Zacarias, singer and keyboardist and president of the UAE Filipino Bands Alliance, an advocacy group. “We are some of the most sought after artists in the world and here we are treated like garbage.”
British vocalists can earn close to what Filipinos earn in a month, Zacarías said. Managers reserve “the good hotel suites” for traveling Indian dancers, while Filipinos often pack eight to a room in unsanitary lodgings, he added.
“Unfortunately, it is the reality of the market. It’s cheaper to hire a band from the Philippines, ”said Ricardo Trimillos, an expert in Asian interpretation at the University of Hawaii.
When the clubs closed in Dubai, dozens of Filipino musicians living in dormitories at the mercy of their employers were kicked out with nowhere to go.
According to the gang association, 70 percent never received the promised tip to buy food and other basic items. Some are selling their clothes to survive. Out-of-work dancers like Catherine Gallano, 33, have started broadcasting their routines live: spinning, flipping back and blowing kisses at followers who send them money.
The UAE’s Alliance of Philippine Bands said that about 80 percent of Filipino artists have had their visas canceled by their employers, a consequence of the UAE’s “kafala” labor system that links expatriate residency to their jobs.
For the millions of underpaid migrant workers from Asia, Africa and elsewhere that have built the UAE as a center of the global economy, the virus has magnified decades-old abuses such as wage theft, back wages and horrible living conditions, Hiba said. Zayadin, a Gulf investigator for Human Rights Watch. That’s especially true for domestic workers, he added, another precarious job that Filipinos dominate.
When the virus struck in March, Jhune Neri, a 38-year-old singer and comedian, was literally trapped. As a “public health precaution,” he said, his manager bolted all the doors and locked the elevator to his crowded bedroom, locking the 11 artists inside for months. Living only on weekly deliveries of rice and red sauce, the bands moved on, churning out versions of Whitney Houston’s hits.
“I was thinking, at least I’m still singing, at least I’m still alive,” Neri said.
Weeks later, the landlord woke him up when he cut the electricity and evicted everyone. He is still determined to succeed in Dubai, although he said most of his friends have “given up hope” and have gone home.
But leaving the city is not so easy. Like thousands of other Filipinos, Rommel Cuison, a 30-year-old guitarist in a hotel bar, has languished for months on a repatriation waiting list, his employer cannot pay for his trip, and the Philippines cannot quarantine masses of returnees. When Cuison’s money-strapped club brought only solo singers from the confinement, he sold his beloved guitar to buy food.
For artists fortunate enough to have a concert these days, Dubai’s newly revived music scene looks very different. Hotels struggle to fill rooms. Party goers are declining as the pandemic hits everyone in their pockets. Undercover health inspectors patrol the clubs and threaten fines of US $ 13,600 for violations. No more delighting into the wee hours of the morning – the speakers turn off at 1 a.m. M.
Marino Raboy, a rock singer in Dubai’s working-class Deira district, said his club feels desolate. Some nights, he performs just for the hostesses lined up at the bar waiting to serve pitchers of Heineken.
As the virus continues to rise in the UAE, many expect tough times to last. Dubai’s live shows and major conventions, including its Expo 2020, have been delayed. S&P Global, a rating agency, predicts that the city-state’s economy will shrink 11 percent this year, recovering only by 2023.
Roman, in a voice like that of former Journey leader Steve Perry, said the new reality means fewer tips and meager pay – not enough to cover the bills for his aging mother and four children in the Philippines. Still, he feels like he “has no choice” but hope.
“This is the worst time of my life,” he said. “I have to believe that at some point it will end.”
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