Many of the OFWs still experience financial problems in spite of years of hard work due to inefficient money management, while the most of the Overseas Filipino Workers (OFWs) earn better in other countries. One of the common causes of why workers abroad struggle with their finances, in spite of their higher pay, is the over-dependence of families and relatives of OFWs as the Commission on Filipinos Overseas (CFO) recognized. As stated by Andrea Anolin who is the CFO executive assistant for joint migration and development initiative,“People tend to think that once you go abroad, it seems that you get a higher income and that will solve all your problems.”
The collection of debts due to over-borrowing in the belief that the money can be returned once hired overseas is one of the OFWs difficulties before leaving in the Philippines, as Anolin added. Anolin said,
“The families who are left behind and also the migrants themselves have very unrealistic expectations. They equate going overseas with an automatic improvement in the quality of their lives.”In addition, a few OFWs are told to simply fall into the demands of their families and relatives for payments and gifts from abroad, thus the failure to save enough money for the future. Anolin added,
“We don’t really save for the rainy days. We don’t really think long term. Our plans, our objectives are vague and we don’t really know how to get from one place to the next. So it’s easy to be lured by commercial spending.”
As CFO pointed out, eight out of 10 Filipinos don't have bank accounts -- an evidence that financial literacy among Filipinos is not high, as stated by the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP). CFO emphasized that they should not let themselves end up without profits and should not neglect to keep more than they consume in order to accomplish a common purpose of producing a sustainable income in their homeland, while it is not that bad for OFWs to spend for their families with imported commodities. As Warner Dawal stated, who is the senior emigrant services officer for Peso Sense Program,
“It’s not the lack of money to save eh. It’s the lack of the will to save”He also said that
“The most common misconception is the families here in the Philippines think that the remittance they receive is forever.”What can you say about this? Share your thoughts and reaction to us!
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