KUALA LUMPUR, MALAYSIA?CONVENIENCE is in. If one is a migrant worker, or foreign tourist wishing to go to this Southeast Asian country, he will know the comfort of passing through Malaysia?s gateway, the Kuala Lumpur International Airport.

With many rows of immigration officials, travelers can freely choose where to go. And unlike in other countries, no immigration cards are even needed. ?It is because all travelers? details are computerized already,? a male immigration officer said.

KLIA looks classier than some high-end Philippine shopping malls. Marbled floors and food stalls are bright inside this spacious airport. Of course, there are rules: Some 45 degree-angled escalators are allowed to accommodate baggage pushcarts, the way some airlines allow 32 kg. or 20 kg. baggage limits. When one gets into the outskirts of Kuala Lumpur, foreigners are given some simple rules. Southeast Asians are welcome, says a Philippine embassy official, but the Malaysian government advises them ?to leave the country on or before the expiry date of your visa? (Attention: Indonesians and Filipinos, as some Malaysian politicians would say).

There are also cultural norms that foreigners like Filipino workers must abide by here: don?t kiss the hands of cheeks of others, except spouses, in public. The right hand should always be used when eating with one?s hand or when giving and receiving objects. What about the left hand? ?In Malaysian tradition, the left hand is considered unclean,? says a handbook for Filipino workers.

Rules govern whatever is being moved ?things, money, trade and people. Whatever one?s traveler motives are, be it as a bearer or exporter of other forms of goods to countries, rules are the name of the game.

There are different rules for different milieus: educational qualifications for foreign workers in Canada and Switzerland differ, as do regulations on irregular or undocumented migrants in Italy, Australia, and the United States.

But some 200 million people whom the world calls ?migrants,? while trying to follow or skirt different rules governing their stay in lands other than their own, also show that today?s global human mobility is not only rapid, but can be raucous for governments as well as redeeming for individuals.

Moving rapidly are not just people, but cash and in-kind remittances, ideas, cultures and norms, national and transnational identities, peoples? rights, and dreams of better lives. No wonder it ain?t easy for many governments to talk about international migration, more so its relationship with development (itself another broad universe).

And now, some rich countries like Japan, France, the United Kingdom, Germany, Australia, and Canada are feeling the pinch: to sustain their economies, they gulped and said they need foreign labor.

Many people?s current interest with this six percent segment of the global population called migrants, refugees, and asylum seekers has not been seen before. Even the UN General Assembly thumbed down previous proposals for a world conference on migration and development.

But the bubble is about to burst: over-US$300 billion of remittances to developing and least-developed countries are a stark fact that compels the attention of development groups to the concerns of undocumented and documented people. Developing countries such as South Africa and the Philippines have paid their dues to developed countries: their nurses have saved developed countries? health systems (the monetary worth of which is higher than these host countries? official development aid to the migrants? home countries).

If the International Labor Office thinks there remains an immense demand worldwide for low-skilled labor (to include foreigners), imagine if developed country nationals who are bank executives, diplomats, and government officials would be the ones to clean their own laundry and dishes after toiling in their daily work.

Even American businesspeople are raking in money from a migrant: Yao Ming, and Chinese nationals in the US are making US businesses? cash registers active.

Which brings to mind what international migration scholar Peter Stalker, a British national, said: ?What?s the fuzz all about, anyway??

The global fuzz is that there are differing rules on how countries and blocs of economies deal with migrants and international migration. Meanwhile a small mall here in Kuala Lumpur has formal and informal remittance centers that provide the economic lifelines of various poor countries. In some countries, there are all sorts of restaurants and culturally distinct meals. What may be a sweet-smelling barbecue to Filipinos is a stench for some Western noses.

And this mixing of cultures, identities, and resources will continually flow, and possibly overflow.

International migration has its own blessings and curses, depending on whether the vantage point is of origin countries or receiving societies. But regardless of how one looks at international migration and development, governments have no choice now but to review their immigration rules, their relationships with other countries, and the interdependency of the economies of the so-called First and Third Worlds.

At the same time, as the recent magazine of the Overseas Filipino Workers Journalism Consortium, Move, writes, ?there has never been a time than now when it?s easier for workers to move around despite, in spite of, and even against greater state control over migration.?

All these calls for reflection are because of migrants ?ordinary apple pickers, construction workers, nannies and caregivers, natural scientists, and many more who send money home and provide income and some measure of economic stability to their host countries. They are now ?development actors,? no longer criminal eyesores in host lands.

Global Conference on Migration

From October 27-30 in Manila, the Philippines will host the Second Global Forum on Migration and Development. The GFMD is not formally under the United Nations System, but is a conclave that brings together governments, migrants, and private/civil society actors from over-150 states to talk about practical solutions on international migration and development can provide equalizing benefits to everyone. The Ayala Foundation will handle the civil society days (October 27-28), while the Department of Foreign Affairs will convene the inter-governmental forum (October 29-30).

No less than UN Secretary-General Ban Ki Moon will oversee the Second GFMD, as this annual event that began in Brussels, Belgium in 2007 was inspired by the prodding of former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan for the world to look at the conditions of migrants.

No less than a leading migrant-sending country, the Philippines (home of some 8.7 million migrants in 193 countries who have sent some US$120 billion in the last 32 years) will showcase its ways of managing the outflow of people for work and permanent settlement abroad, and of handling problems associated with international migration.

International migration is the world?s newest ?great equalizer? for people and countries affected by this demographic phenomenon. In overseas migration, people find opportunities they can maximize stand to benefit even foreigners, not just host country nationals. As for rich and poor countries, both now have their own leveraging positions on the global stage ?thanks to migrants (especially from developing countries). Some even remark that international migration ?is the single greatest poverty reduction endeavor in human history?.

We then go back to Kofi Annan?s prodding: that the welfare of migrants should not be set aside. Migrants may be among the reasons why global human mobility is easy for some and uneasy for others. But their simple hard work and dreams for their families back home and in their adopted countries are now providing today?s world with hopefully a future built on multiculturalism, respect and global equity.

Jeremaiah M. Opiniano, 32, is executive director of the nonprofit thinktank Institute for Migration and Development Issues (IMDI, www.filipinodiasporagiving.org).

The Institute does social policy research, advocacy, networking, and development journalism on international migration and development issues in the Philippines. He also teaches at the University of Santo Tomas journalism program. Comments are welcome at ofw_philanthropy@yahoo.com.