New skills put migrant workers at head of table

If you are vacationing on a Mediterranean cruise ship, celebrating your winnings at an Asian casino or dining with the president of the United States, chances are that a Filipino will be cooking your meal.

Since the 1970s, the Philippines has been known for its mass export of workers, particularly poorly paid maids and construction workers who choose an uncertain life abroad above deep poverty at home.

But in recent years, there has been a trend toward higher-skilled and better-paying jobs, and cooking schools in the Philippines are now churning out tens of thousands of chefs a year for kitchens around the world.

"I've always been interested in cooking, especially baking, even as a kid," former bank clerk Rochelle Evaristo said as she took a break from making sandwiches alongside other aspiring cooks at a Manila school.

"I also want to work abroad. My cousin is in Canada, and he said they need a lot of cooks."

In her late 20s, she is among the oldest of the class of 39 mostly teenage students at her government-run school in Manila.

More than 10 million people from the Philippines work overseas. Maids, sailors and laborers are still the most common jobs.

However cooks, bakers and pastry chefs are becoming the most sought-after professions, with ships, hotels, restaurants and casinos the main employers, said Theodoro Pascua, the school's deputy director for operations.

Nearly 180,000 Filipinos went to work in ship galleys abroad from 2010 to 2014, including nearly 72,000 head chefs, with the rest made up of kitchen assistants, waiters and waitresses, according to labor department data.

Over the same period, about 65,000 Filipinos went to work in similar catering jobs in hotels and restaurants in foreign countries.

Filipinos are big assets in the global catering industry because of their English proficiency, the ease with which they adapt to the host countries and a resilience that belies their easygoing nature, Pascua said.

There are about 2,500 cooking schools - mostly private but also government-run - in the Philippines, Pascua said.

The culinary trail was blazed by Pablo Logro, a former dishwasher who rose to become the personal chef of the sultan of Oman, where for a decade he regularly cooked lamb for the sultan and served visiting royalty and heads of state.

Returning to the Philippines, he became the first Filipino executive chef of a five-star hotel.

He eventually opened his own culinary school and established himself as a celebrity chef with his own successful television cooking show.

A more recent success is Cristeta Comerford, who began as assistant chef in then-US president Bill Clinton's White House in 1995 after working at five-star hotels in the United States.

She was appointed executive chef in the presidential kitchen in 2005 by then-US first lady Laura Bush, a position she carried into the Barack Obama presidency.

"Thanks to her, we in the White House enjoy the occasional lumpia and adobo," Obama said in his toast at a state dinner in the Philippines last year.