Filipinos Count Cost of Remittance Society

The Asian Development Bank, in its Asian Development Outlook released on Thursday, enumerated the reasons that are stunting the growth of the Philippine economy. Among these are poor investments, high unemployment and a dependence on remittances from overseas Filipino workers. Davao Today editor Carlos Conde recently wrote about this dependence for the International Herald Tribune, where this article first appeared.

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By Carlos H. Conde
davaotoday.com

MABINI, Batangas — For much of the past 15 years, Marcelino Abu has had neither a steady job nor a regular income that could support his three children. But for as long as he can remember, he has never been worried.

“We owe everything to my wife,” Abu, 49, said in a recent interview in this seaside town where he lives, 92 kilometers south of Manila. “If not for her, we would not survive.”

It is a familiar story. His wife, Yolanda Abu, has been working as a domestic helper in Rome for the past 15 years. She is one of the thousands from this town who work as maids in Europe, mostly in Italy. And Abu is one of many who stay at home, contentedly jobless because there is simply no need to work.

The Philippines’s extreme reliance on the remittances of migrant workers has been recognized as a mixed blessing ever since the 1970s, when the country became a major exporter of labor. Now, labor experts worry that Filipinos have become too dependent on remittances and that a damaging “moral hazard” has resulted.

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