Where do OFW Remittances Go?
>There is study made by Asian Development Bank that families of Overseas Filipino Workers are into family beneficial product and services rather than into foods. We have a notion that the “padala” or the items sent by our OFW always include food but according to economic experts, their families chose to avail products and services which offer life’s needs such as education and daily transportation.
Three Asian economy gurus, namely, Alvin Ang (Philippines), Shikha Jha (India) and Guntur Sugiyarto (Indonesia), used econometric estimations and they notified that between 2000 and 2006, food expenditure of OFW family dropped from 44.9 percent to 43.4 percent.
Even though the rate of remittances is rising year after year, still the percentage of food expenditure by OFW families is getting lower and lower. Imagine, from 2000 remittance of 18.05 percent, it goes up to 23.3 percent in 2006. Yet, contains of their eating tables are getting vaguer in their purchase lists.
The Asian Development Bank is one of the first to study where the moneys remitted to OFW families go. The purpose of their study is to know whether the remittances are productive or not when they reach the families. They also based their research on the Family Income and Expenditures Survey (FIES) of the National Statistics Office (NSO) and their data from 2000, 2003 and 2006.
Here is the general breakdown: from 2000 to 2006, the spending Filipino families on education are within the range of 4.5 percent. While their spending on housing operations from that period is within 2.0 percent. About transportation and communication (of course, this includes mobile phone consumption), the percentage has a different story. It increased from 6.2 percent (2000) to 7.2 percent (2006). These are the nationwide numbers. Nonetheless, if we are going to separate the rate of OFW families’ expenditures, the percentage is higher than non-OFW families.
However, I want to remind you that this study is made before the 2008 crisis in the Philippines so I’m pretty sure that it has a different story at that time. The main reason why I share this to you is that for OFW families to be reminded of their expenditures because the remittances of our modern heroes (OFW) are acquired through hard work and a lot of sacrifices—please use wisely the money they send.
Reference:
Opiniano, J. (2010). OFW Families Spending Less on Food, More on Health – ADB Study. Retrieved on January 31, 2012, from http://www.philippinestoday.net/index.php?module=article&view=2380