60 percent of migrant families remain poor

While going abroad to work is generally believed to bring financial blessings, at least 60 percent of families of overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) remain poor, Catholic Church officials said on Wednesday.

Father Edwin Corros, the executive secretary of the Episcopal Commission for the Pastoral Care of Migrants and Itinerant People of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines (CBCP), said that 60 percent of the families of migrant Filipinos who remain poor have relatives employed abroad in the unskilled sector category, who end up empty-handed when they return to the country because they do not save for the future.

There are also cases of OFWs in the unskilled category being victimized by illegal recruiters and falling prey to human trafficking.

“It is very difficult to convince them to save because they will need it in the future,” Corros said during the press briefing for the Pamilyang OFW Savers and Wellness Club.

Ferdinand Berba, the senior vice president for business development of life insurance outfit Pioneer Life, attributed this to the savings rate of the Philippines, which has been pegged from 12 percent to 20 percent.

The savings rates of China, Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia and Thailand are higher than that of the Philippines, which, however, is ahead of Myanmar and Cambodia in this regard.

Emergency savings

If OFWs are saving, Berba said that 42 percent of their savings go to emergency spending ahead of the allotment for children’s education (34 percent), food (6.6 percent), marriage or other future plans (5.9 percent), business investment (3.4 percent) and housing (2.9 percent), among others.

“We can see that they are not saving for the future. The tragic thing is that they go home unsuccessful, and they don’t have any savings. Their life as well as their families are very far from what it used to be when the OFW is abroad,” Berba added.

Based on Philippine government records, there are about eight million overseas Filipinos worldwide, including migrant workers.

Linda Wirth, the director of the International Labor Organization (ILO) in Manila, said that lack of savings will make the situation of overseas workers more difficult considering that migrants and their families are constantly exposed to various risks such as illness, accidents, loss of property, natural and human-made disasters, climate change and the lingering global economic crisis.

She added that 80 percent of the world’s population do not have access to basic social services.

“While not all of the OFWs are poor, there is a bigger percentage of them who came from poor families and these are the ones who are sending money more regularly to their families compared with those migrant families who are already doing well. The tendency is really to seek help from friends and relatives,” Wirth pointed out.

These problems are expected to be addressed by the Pamilyang OFW Savers and Wellness Club project of the CBCP and the Pioneer Group, which was made possible through a $95,000 ILO grant.

The ILO grant for the project is the first to be given to the Philippines and is one of the 20 programs chosen by the organization from more than 200 applicants worldwide.

The project, which started December 2009 and will last until 2011, aims to teach families of migrant workers how to save money and its benefits, through financial literacy sessions and an insurance and savings product.

Membership in the club, which costs P400 for children and P500 for adults, covers accident insurance, cash burial insurance and life insurance. Benefits of the project also include privileges from its business partners.

The project targets 250,000 migrant families with an average monthly income of $350, or about P15,750 that belong to migrant associations at churches and schools in select provinces within Luzon and Metro Manila.

Community of savers

At present, it has been introduced to six CBCP dioceses and has registered some 900 members.

“The project is designed to cater to the masses where many of the migrant workers come from in order to provide them an accessible and affordable product that can easily be understood,” Pioneer Life President and Chief Executive Officer Lorenzo Chua said.

“We want to help create a community of savers and investors so that the migrant workers’ dream of coming home for good can be a reality,” Chua added.

Wirth, however, stressed that the work does not end at getting the OFWs to participate in the project, saying that the government should also have a policy that will turn economic growth into quality employment.

“Many are still employed here, but they do not have the sufficient income to avail of the social services that they deserve if they do not have the purchasing power,” Wirth said.

“Beyond meeting the target one million jobs, the government should facilitate an enabling environment so that Filipinos would not need to leave the country in search of a better income,” she added. –LLANESCA T. PANTI Reporter with report from Rose-An Jessica M. Dioquino, Manila Times