OFWs’ Money Still Short
to Spur Rural Growth
by JEREMAIAH M. OPINIANO
The spire on a Tudor-style mansion encircled by green rice reeds jutting from hectares of land in San Quintin, Pangasinan points people to where money could be found.
The house belongs to Marietta Reyes who, like many of the 5,000 Filipinos in this fourth-class municipality, has flown in 300-seater jumbo jet that may or may not have passed the sky above it zooming outside Philippine borders. Reyes and her family of four now live in Brussels, Belgium.
Their house is reputedly San Quintin’s tallest, residents there say. A walk through the poblacion (Spanish-era commercial center) offers guests a view of one- to two-storey concrete houses trying to outdo the Reyes’s.
San Quintin’s overseas Filipino workers who are abroad are credited for these changes in their hometown. Ditto for the learning center in Labuan village on the hillsides of a mountain –“Quintinians” from eight countries raised the US$16,000 required for its construction.
San Quintin is a town of Marietta Reyes: of many migrant workers. These images of migrant workers’ bounty at home are typical in Pangasinan, Philippines.
It has been this way for more than a decade with hundreds of villagers leaving for work abroad and religiously sending home dollars.
Yet, despite the flow, the whole of Pangasinan’s 2003 poverty incidence of 18.6 percent has been slow in getting reduced compared to its neighbor Pampanga (6.0 percent), which over 125,226 residents have been overseas Filipinos since 1988.
According to government data, Pangasinan’s temporary contract workers and permanent residents abroad number to 111,029.
Building frenzy
THE LAST bamboo stick fell to the ground as hired carpenters begin construction of a concrete house for Reyes’s neighbor two blocks away. The project is funded by the eldest daughter working in Hong Kong.
These concrete houses continue to mushroom in San Quintin and replace many of the village’s nipa huts that stood until the late 1990s. During the late 1980s, the land where Reyes’ three-storey house now stands was of a bamboo hut.
The construction Pernia cited as basis that international migration is lifting rural Philippines from abject poverty.
Pernia, who teaches economics at the University of the Philippines, Quezon City, also based his view by computing the impact of remittances on poverty alleviation and regional development.
Remittances, he said, have provided higher purchasing power per capita to the bottom 40 percent of Filipino households. Pernia’s computation also showed remittances raising consumer spending and investments in human capital and housing.
Such is why Filipino families, like Araceli Orante’s household, are happy with their economic bounty and marbled homes in San Quintin.
The Orantes are living in San Diego, California, USA and visit San Quintin at least six months every year.
They and other families of an estimated eight million Filipinos working and living abroad are credited for the second wind in the country’s real estate sector and tourism.
According to property broker CB Richard Ellis, the continuous “increase in OFW deployment supports prolong growth in demand for housing given the increase in disposable income”.
Frenzied building
BUT HAVE the dollars sent by Filipinos from abroad gone beyond their former farm-based families and spur rural development? Studies and anecdotal evidence provide affirmative bases.
Donations from Filipinos abroad support IMDI’s findings on how these help the top 20 provincial recipients via a government-backed program from 1990 to 2006.
Of these provinces, 13 posted lower poverty incidence levels than the national average. Apart from Pampanga and Pangasinan, provinces included are Benguet, Batangas, Zambales, Cavite, Laguna, Bulacan, Nueva Ecija, La Union, Rizal, Davao del Sur, and Negros Occidental.
Other provinces have higher poverty incidence levels despite having received remittances and donations from migrant workers, the IMDI study said. “It remains a wonder if migrants’ remittances and donations have led to equitable development.
The juxtaposition alone of data on donations, number of overseas Filipinos per province, and poverty incidence levels “do not provide a clear trend” of certain links, said the study.
But the Institute wrote that amid the continued flow of remittances and donations from OFWs and the multiplier effects they provide in rural communities, these resources are going to places that do not have “any larger, coherent local development strategy”.
Ang’s 2006 study found remittances have “mixed influences” on how these impact on economic growth in Philippine regions.
In San Quintin, the spire on the Tudor-style mansion of the Reyeses continues to spur higher economic status. /MP
The house belongs to Marietta Reyes who, like many of the 5,000 Filipinos in this fourth-class municipality, has flown in 300-seater jumbo jet that may or may not have passed the sky above it zooming outside Philippine borders. Reyes and her family of four now live in Brussels, Belgium.
Their house is reputedly San Quintin’s tallest, residents there say. A walk through the poblacion (Spanish-era commercial center) offers guests a view of one- to two-storey concrete houses trying to outdo the Reyes’s.
San Quintin’s overseas Filipino workers who are abroad are credited for these changes in their hometown. Ditto for the learning center in Labuan village on the hillsides of a mountain –“Quintinians” from eight countries raised the US$16,000 required for its construction.
San Quintin is a town of Marietta Reyes: of many migrant workers. These images of migrant workers’ bounty at home are typical in Pangasinan, Philippines.
It has been this way for more than a decade with hundreds of villagers leaving for work abroad and religiously sending home dollars.
Yet, despite the flow, the whole of Pangasinan’s 2003 poverty incidence of 18.6 percent has been slow in getting reduced compared to its neighbor Pampanga (6.0 percent), which over 125,226 residents have been overseas Filipinos since 1988.
According to government data, Pangasinan’s temporary contract workers and permanent residents abroad number to 111,029.
Building frenzy
THE LAST bamboo stick fell to the ground as hired carpenters begin construction of a concrete house for Reyes’s neighbor two blocks away. The project is funded by the eldest daughter working in Hong Kong.
These concrete houses continue to mushroom in San Quintin and replace many of the village’s nipa huts that stood until the late 1990s. During the late 1980s, the land where Reyes’ three-storey house now stands was of a bamboo hut.
The construction Pernia cited as basis that international migration is lifting rural Philippines from abject poverty.
Pernia, who teaches economics at the University of the Philippines, Quezon City, also based his view by computing the impact of remittances on poverty alleviation and regional development.
Remittances, he said, have provided higher purchasing power per capita to the bottom 40 percent of Filipino households. Pernia’s computation also showed remittances raising consumer spending and investments in human capital and housing.
Such is why Filipino families, like Araceli Orante’s household, are happy with their economic bounty and marbled homes in San Quintin.
The Orantes are living in San Diego, California, USA and visit San Quintin at least six months every year.
They and other families of an estimated eight million Filipinos working and living abroad are credited for the second wind in the country’s real estate sector and tourism.
According to property broker CB Richard Ellis, the continuous “increase in OFW deployment supports prolong growth in demand for housing given the increase in disposable income”.
Frenzied building
BUT HAVE the dollars sent by Filipinos from abroad gone beyond their former farm-based families and spur rural development? Studies and anecdotal evidence provide affirmative bases.
Donations from Filipinos abroad support IMDI’s findings on how these help the top 20 provincial recipients via a government-backed program from 1990 to 2006.
Of these provinces, 13 posted lower poverty incidence levels than the national average. Apart from Pampanga and Pangasinan, provinces included are Benguet, Batangas, Zambales, Cavite, Laguna, Bulacan, Nueva Ecija, La Union, Rizal, Davao del Sur, and Negros Occidental.
Other provinces have higher poverty incidence levels despite having received remittances and donations from migrant workers, the IMDI study said. “It remains a wonder if migrants’ remittances and donations have led to equitable development.
The juxtaposition alone of data on donations, number of overseas Filipinos per province, and poverty incidence levels “do not provide a clear trend” of certain links, said the study.
But the Institute wrote that amid the continued flow of remittances and donations from OFWs and the multiplier effects they provide in rural communities, these resources are going to places that do not have “any larger, coherent local development strategy”.
Ang’s 2006 study found remittances have “mixed influences” on how these impact on economic growth in Philippine regions.
In San Quintin, the spire on the Tudor-style mansion of the Reyeses continues to spur higher economic status. /MP
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