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By Jeremaiah M. Opiniano, Contributor
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia: For 12 years, Rita’s
family in the Philippines was fed through two shoe-box sized
containers at her feet.
The rectangular matte-black boxes, scuffed with
use, contain Rita’s tools of the trade: nail clippers, nippers,
two-inch tall bottles of silver, gold, and red nail polishes,
blush-on brushes and mascara.
For more than a decade, Rita relied on her being
a manicurist and pedicurist, enabling her to send money to her
family in Bansalan, Davao del Sur.
Rita is one of millions of female laborers and
unskilled workers among overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) who
participated in the annual Survey on Overseas Filipinos (SOF) of the
National Statistics Office.
Even if their number is more than that of the
men, women OFWs’ meager salaries abroad have not made them the top
remitters compared to their counterpart male low-skilled workers.
While not revealing how much she sends monthly,
Rita says she earns an average 100 ringgits (a minimum of P1,365.40
at current exchange rates) a day.
Notably, that is still below the RM150 daily
cost of living allowance that the Malaysian Trades Union Congress
said the government provided to public sector employees last year.
Malaysia, where Rita is based in, hosts some
244,967 Filipinos, according to newly released stock estimates of
the government-run Commission on Filipinos Overseas (CFO).
Of this number, the CFO estimates nearly half
are undocumented; the rest have declared Malaysia their permanent
home (26,002) while the remaining are temporary migrants with legal
travel and working documents.
The CFO data, sadly, is not
gender-disaggregated, but the SOF is. In 2006, it affirmed there
were more women OFWs: 764,000 versus 751,000 men working and living
outside the Philippines.
That year, they poured into the Philippines an
estimated P102 billion in cash and in-kind remittances
Cash remittances refer to those sent from host
countries, as well as money that OFWs brought home.
That estimated total cash and in-kind
remittances was higher than the P85.1 billion total in the 2005 SOF.
For cash remittances, the 2006 SOF saw OFWs
remitting nearly P76 billion from April to September that year.
While there are more women OFWs, male migrant
workers sent more during that period: nearly P51 billion as against
the P26 billion by women.
Analysts expect remittances from women to drop
as there was a decrease in the deployment of Filipino domestic
helpers last year.
WHILE laborers and unskilled workers were the
most number of OFWs from the 2001 to the 2006 editions of the SOF,
two occupational groups of male workers have been the leading
remitters.
From 2001 to 2005, male “plant and machine
operators and assemblers” have been the top remitters–from
nearly P8 billion in 2001 to just above P10 billion after five
years.
Two years ago, male “trades and related
workers” grabbed the top spot by remitting some P13 billion.
The NSO survey aims to know remittance amounts
and channels by OFWs by age, sex, country of work, and region of
origin in the Philippines.
-- OFW Journalism Consortium
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