PinoyBusiness.ORG – Home

This is a very optimistic take on the current economic condition of the Philippines, what with the financial crisis and all. It should be noted that the whole proposal of the new Filipino family being middle-class – 10 million of them – as compared to that of an American middle-class family whose assets are practically on credit, is somehow very hard to swallow.

This just goes to show that mathematics is a pure science, and that numbers do not necessarily translate to reality. The main subject of this proposition is the OFWs. There are more than 11 million overseas Filipinos worldwide, equivalent to about 11% of the total population of the Philippines.

The remittances sent back home by these OFWs totaled to S14.45 billion for 2007 and remains to be the largest source of foreign currency of the country. True, the Filipino OFWs are unique – highly educated, easily trainable, very skilled, and English speaking and because of this, would remain to be in demand overseas. But with the current financial crisis, unemployment rate in those highly developed countries adversely affected would definitely go up, as companies would downsize operations to a minimum.

With this in mind, laid-off locals in these foreign countries would seek employment elsewhere and the jobs previously taken by foreigners such as Filipinos, would instead be given to these unemployed locals. Moreover, a considerable number of these OFWs are employed as domestic staff, and when a foreign employer found himself losing investment in stocks or his country experiencing financial crisis, first to go off would be the foreign help.

Thus creating a scenario wherein the Filipino suddenly found himself unemployed. This is the reality faced by the OFWs everyday. Which we now turn towards the question as to what happens next. Projected remittances would not be met, or worse, OFWs would be forced to come back to the Philippines. Thus, the entire computation goes down. The new Filipino middle class? Possibly, in the near future. Not 2008.