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By Chino S. Leyco, Reporter
PRINCE of the Netherlands said Wednesday the
country’s economic buoyancy could not be sustained by overseas
Filipinos’ remittances alone.
Prince Constantijn, also the Hague Process on
Refugees and Migration chairman, said the Philippine government
should keep its people from moving abroad and instead create an
opportunity for “people at home.”
To date, there are 160,000 Filipinos residing in
the Netherlands.
The prince said: “In the end, it’s not
sustainable to have a large part of the economy actually abroad, I
think you have to do both. I don’t think [OFW remittance] is the
solution to economic progress in the long run.”
Money sent home by OFWs grew by about 16 percent
in February to $1.258 billion, causing remittances in the first two
months to increase by 15.5 percent to $2.522 billion compared with
$2.184 billion in the same period last year.
The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas has forecast
remittances to increase to $15.7 billion this year from $14.449
billion last year.
The Philippine Overseas Employment
Administration reported that the number of deployed new hires in the
fields of engineering, medical/healthcare, education, and food and
hotel service rose year on year.
The number of deployed workers grew by
14.6 percent to 199,378 from 174,046 a year ago. By deployment,
land- and seas-based workers increased by 13 percent and 20.3
percent, respectively.
The major sources of remittances are the United
States, Saudi Arabia, the United Kingdom, Italy, United Arab
Emirates, Canada, Japan, Singapore and Hong Kong.
BSP Deputy Governor Diwa C. Guinigundo earlier
said stable remittance inflows would likely offset the impact of
high oil prices and prop up domestic economic growth.
He said increasing demand for OFWs would support
the peso’s strength against the dollar and temper inflation.
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