Remittances up despite dip in deployment

THE higher quality of the Filipino workers being sent abroad made up for the 8-percent drop in the total number dispatched in the first four months, and at the same time raised the amount they remitted during the period, an official said Monday.

Officials deployed only 532,000 workers abroad in the four months to April compared with 569,000 the year previous, but the money they and the others sent home rose by 5.9 percent to $4.6 billion, said Carlos Cao Jr., head of the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration.

“Despite the slight drop considering the crisis in the Middle East—first in Egypt, then Libya, Yemen, Bahrain, Syria and Saudi Arabia—there was no huge negative impact on remittances,” Cao said citing Bangko Sentral figures.

The highest amount sent so far was the $1.6 billion remitted in March, Cao said.

Central bank figures showed that even the money sent home from strife-torn Libya, Bahrain, Yemen and Syria rose 4.5 percent to $40.1 million in the quarter to March.

And the positive trend was that more highly skilled Filipinos than unskilled ones were being deployed overseas, Cao said.

He said President Benigno Aquino III had reported that there were 177,600 Filipino workers in Singapore when he returned from his visit to that country, and of that number 107,600 were managers, information technology specialists, and other highly skilled workers.

That meant there were only 70,000 Filipino domestics in the Lion City, Cao said. –Macon Ramos-Araneta, Manila Standard Today