Remittances propping up the Philippine economy
March 21, 2006I knew a lot of Filipinos work abroad and send money back home to the Philippines, a practice called “remittance”. I hadn’t realized these remittances comprise 14% of the Philippine GDP in 2004.
The Philippines economy is being boosted by all these people who are sacrificing their family lives in pursuit of the economic dream. The Mercury News has a good story about some of those sacrifices.
Not that I can see any alternative. If these people stayed in the Philippines they would be unemployed or barely employed, their families in abject poverty. By sacrificing like this they can provide for so many people back home. Yet the toll is enormous, and the potential social costs have yet to be fully understood.
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