Quick Facts on Overseas Employment

According to the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP), the five top sources of dollar remittances in 2006 were:

1. USA $6.5 Billion
2. Saudi Arabia $1.1 Billion
3. Canada $590 Million
4. Italy $574 Million
5. United Kingdom $561 Million

Based on government estimates, our OFWs will remit an average of $1 Billion a month this year.

This accounts for about 25% of receipts from exports of goods and services; 5 times the official Foreign Direct Investments; 57% of GIR; 10% of GDP. (Institute for Migration and Development Studies, 2007).

Given how substantial their collective remittances are, does government allocate enough resources to help or assist them in their times of need?

Based on the 2006 General Appropriations Act, the Philippine government allotted the following amounts to its embassies (according to rank):

1. London, UK Php 146 M
2. Tokyo, Japan Php 120 M
3. Riyadh, Saudi Arabia Php 120 M
4. Washington DC, US Php 94M
5. China Php 92M

Considering that the bulk of remittances come from Filipinos in Saudi Arabia and the United States, don’t they deserve a bigger budget? In Riyadh alone, there are around 1,605 Filipinos with pending cases, detained or under house arrest.

In its Report to Congress, the DFA Migrant Workers’ Affairs Office reported a total of 10,483 migrant-related cases. It disbursed Php 68-M from the Assistance-to-Nationals (ATN) Fund and provided Php 16.5M for legal assistance. Certainly there are more than 10,000 Filipinos worldwide who are in dire straits and in need of government assistance.

Again, these are paltry amounts considering the huge contributions of our OFWs.

We need to review our overseas employment program alongside budget and staffing allocations to help our OFWs while abroad. We have an entire government servicing the needs of the local population. Once a Filipino leaves for overseas work, he or she has to rely on embassy assistance to take the place of an entire bureaucracy. Due to budget limitations, our embassies and consulates especially in favorite OFW destinations come up short of expectations. For example, assistance to human trafficking victims who fall into the slavery trap is usually slow in coming.

Our OFWs deserve at least a P200-M annual ATN Fund, and at least P100-M Legal Fund.

They also deserve a fully-funded reintegration office that will help them get back into the mainstream of Philippine society once their job contracts end.

Bottomline: we keep calling them modern-day heroes but we likely spend more on “super-regions” than on our economy’s “super heroes”. Our OFWs deserve more institutional and budgetary support than they get right now.

Blogger’s Note: Our Times thanks RJ Aguirre of the University of Asia and Pacific for putting together these figures, and the Office of Senator Mar Roxas for sharing them with me.