The Philippines relies on remittances to prop up the local economy. But the reports of abuses cannot be ignored, says this Manila-based journalist.
triumphantly announced he had solved a “deployment issue” involving Filipino workers in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
The treatment of overseas Filipino workers is hugely sensitive politically, amid regular claims of mistreatment and the importance of this considerable diaspora sending money home. The numbers involved are huge. Marcos said “as of today, 70,000 of our have already been deployed to Saudi Arabia for employment”, with another 50,000 workers at least working as seafarers aboard European Union ships.
According to the Philippine Statistics Authority, Saudi Arabi is the number one destination for Filipino workers. Combined with its neighbours, the Gulf countries host almost half of all. The numbers are so many that the abbreviation OFWs is common parlance in Philippines. But without the US$32.5 billion in remittances Marcos claims to the economy from overseas Filipino workers, attention would fall on the dark side of the national accounts - the country holds top spot for inflation in Southeast Asia, as well as the region’s highest unemployment rate and largest food trade deficit.
Periodic reports of worker abuse, of passports being confiscated, modern-day slavery, human trafficking orhaven’t deterred the government from continuing to urge a stream of deployment to these countries.
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