FILIPINOS are found in almost every corner of the planet. Their passports and visas have become their ticket to economic bounty.
Overseas Filipinos are in 239 countries, 209 of which are members of the United Nations. The 30 others are mostly islands and territories.
A forthcoming com-pendium of statistics will reveal and prove the global dispersion of Filipinos. It will also show international migration is a visible socio-economic issue for Philippine provinces and for the countries of destination of Filipinos.
The Filipinos who are in 239 countries include temporary migrants (other-wise known as “overseas Filipino workers” (OFW), permanent mig-rants (in-cluding per-manent residents and Filipino spouses of foreigners), and undocu-mented or irregular migrants, government data that are contained in the first Philippine Migration and Develop-ment Statistical Almanac show.
In these 239 countries, there is at least a thousand dollars remitted to the Philippines from the years 2000 to 2007.
The Almanac, which compiled administrative and survey data produced by government agencies involved in overseas migration, also shows the following trends:
= Temporary migrants can either have males or females as the leading group by gender based on annual releases of administrative and survey data. But females dominate permanent migration (that includes migrants who have married foreign partners), even while Filipino seafarers are a visible group in terms of number;
= Regions located in Luzon island —the National Capital Region, Southern Tagalog, Central Luzon, and the Ilocos Region— have consis-tently emerged as the top origin areas of temporary and permanent overseas migrants, as well as the hubs of many house-holds receiving assistance from abroad;
= Overseas workers have the Middle East and Asia as the leading regions of destination for temporary migrants, while North America is the leading region of destination for permanent migrants;
= The Philippines-Saudi Arabia corridor is the biggest migration corridor for temporary migrants, while the Philippines-United States migration corridor is the biggest for permanent migrants;
= The Philippines, from 1975 to 2007, has received over US$120 billion in cash remittances —all passing through the formal banking system. In addition, triennial estimates on remittances to Philippine regions and provinces show that families receiving assis-tance from migrants abroad got PhP208.848 billion in 2000 (covering 1.107 million migrant households); PhP245.856 billion in 2003 (1.31 million households); and PhP348.524 billion in 2006 (1.601 million households); and
= Males have more total and average remittances than females yearly.
Data on overseas Filipinos in all 79 Philippine provinces and in all the 239 countries of destination can be found in the first Philippine Migration and Develop-ment Statistical Almanac that government and academic partners, and the nonprofit Institute for Migration and Development Issues (IMDI) launched on January 12, 2009.
Stakeholders based in the provinces will be prioritized to receive this Almanac, the Institute said, since they do not have access to such data.
The Commission on
Filipinos Overseas, the
Philippine Overseas Em-ployment Adminis-tration, the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas, UST’s Social Research Center, and IMDI collaborated to produce this statistical compendium, of which its 1,000 book copies and files contained in its website version (http://almanac.ofwphilan thropy.org) are for free.
The Peace and Equity Foundation (PEF), the Philippine Migrants’ Rights Watch (PMRW), US-based migrant donor groups, Feed the Hungry-Philippines, Save-a-Tahanan Inc., and the Economic Resource Center for Overseas Filipinos (Ercof) also partnered in producing this first Migration and Develop-ment Statistical Almanac.
The book and website versions of the Statistical Almanac will be both launched at UST’s Thomas Aquinas and Research Complex. (573 words) (by Jeremaiah Opiniano). /MP
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