Overseas Filipino Workers

Introduction

Nowadays, there are many cases of unemployment in the Philippines. It is undeniable that life in the Philippines is hard. With the monthly increase in transportation fees and basic commodities, the closing of local companies and factories, not to mention the economic crisis the world has been going through, Filipino citizens, both rich and poor, have been suffering a lot. As a result, people hoped to find a better life in other countries. People may come from slums, middle class, or even higher classes and want to migrate to “rich” countries. They might want to move to a better or different environment.

Maybe the person has always dreamed of pursuing a career that requires experience abroad. It doesn’t always mean the person is materialistic. OFWs are called as the country’s modern day hero; probably because of their big heart to work to an anonymous country to support their families, the remittance they contribute the country and because they have been executed, kidnapped, raped and extorted. The Philippine government considers Overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) as a new breed of economic investors in the country because of millions of remittances they brought to the country.

Discussion

Human migration is movement by humans from one area to another, sometimes over long distances or in large groups. People who migrate into a territory are called immigrants, while at the departure point they are called emigrants. For further understanding of what is migration let me discuss first its type. Migration has 5 types first is the impelled migration where a person was not forced to leave the country because of the unfavorable situation of the country where he stayed such as warfare, political problems and religious persecution. Another is the step migration where a migrant is just going to a shorter distance from the place of origin to the final destination. The third type is the chain migration that often begins with one family member who sends money to bring other family member to a new location. Another type is the return migration where the immigrants went back to their place of origin. Last is the seasonal migration where migrants move for a period of time due to labor or climate conditions. Poor living conditions, violence and armed conflicts, environmental problems, a lack of economic perspectives and the growing gap between rich and poor are the factors the greatly influence a person to migrate from a place to another. The media and global motility also cause migration.

Migration greatly influence the economical and cultural aspects of a country but it also has its negative effect. One of it is the cultural effects. Countries like the United States, Argentina, and Brazil have always included a large immigrant population. Citizenship in those countries is based not on ethnic grounds but on a different sort of national identity in which commitment to certain values and ideas is paramount. But for European countries, the nation is often defined in a cultural way—by a common language, heritage, and ethnicity. Indeed, cultural issues are a significant factor in the response of Europeans to global migration. In recent years, the European public has questioned immigration’s effect on culture and national identity. Fear and distrust of immigrants has fueled the creation and success of anti-immigrant political parties in several European countries. Many of these parties have linked social ills, such as unemployment and crime, to immigration. Another is the economic effect. The economic effects of migration vary widely.

Sending countries may experience both gains and losses in the short term but may stand to gain over the longer term. For receiving countries temporary programs help to address skills shortages but may decrease domestic wages and add to public welfare burden. A Swedish Professor notes “The problem is not immigration; it is integration, especially in the labour market. If there are no jobs, the consequences are segregation, housing problems and divided cities” (Traynor, 2010). Nevertheless, most commentators argue that the net effects of migration are generally positive. In the CATO Journal, University of California SanDiego Professor of Economics Gordon H. Hanson (2012) writes “Despite many hurdles to their entry, high-skilled immigrants make important contributions to U.S. productivity growth. By making it easier for talented foreign students to stay on in the country once their studies are finished, their contributions could be even larger.” If there are positive effects, there will be negative effects.

The first negative effect of migration is that it causes economic problems for the cities. Most importantly, it leads to a decrease on the quality of worker s. Apart from creating economical problems for the government, it also causes economical problems for the citizens. One of these problems is ‘increasing cost of living’. In U.S. a family can reach average life standards with an eight or nine dollar per hour. Immigrants and other workers gain four or five. Another remarkable negative impact of migration to urban is the social problems in citizens’ lives. First of all, the poor conditions of immigrants’ lives encourage them to commit crime. In addition to the criminal problems, cultural erosion is also a big problem. To begin with, the immigrants vary because of the new culture which they try to adapt, and this is called natural assimilation. The final consequence of migration is the environmental problems which destroy the physical appearance of the city.

First and foremost, the human-made part of the cities, structural environment is becoming damaged by the migration. Most importantly, immigrants create unhealthy, illegal houses, ‘the slums’ in and around the city, because they have to shelter with their limited economies. There are different issues regarding migration. Let’s discuss first the issues about HUMAN RIGHTS. An estimated 214 million people currently live outside their country of origin, many having moved for a variety of reasons in which the search for protection and the search for opportunity are inextricably entwined. Migration affects every region of the world, and many countries are now simultaneously countries of origin, destination and transit. Large numbers of migrants today move between developing countries, and around 40 percent of the total global migrant population have moved to a neighbouring country within their region of origin. Migrants are often to be found working in jobs that are dirty, dangerous and degrading (the 3 Ds). While for some migration is a positive and empowering experience, far too many migrants have to endure human rights violations, discrimination, and exploitation.

There are also issues about BRAIN DRAIN. More than a decade ago, US presidential candidate Ross Perot talked about the “giant sucking sound” made as American jobs went south of the border. These days, there is a far more significant sucking sound, one that concerns the whole world and one that could impede collective efforts to make poverty history. That new sucking sound is being made by highly skilled people leaving developing countries and heading to the developed world. The scale of this “brain drain” is staggering. As demographer B. Lindsay Lowell and geographers Allan Findlay and Emma Stewart point out in their research, nearly one in 10 tertiary-educated adults (those with some university or post-secondary schooling) born in the developing world — between a third and half of the developing world’s science and technology personnel — now live in the developed world.

With demand for skilled workers in the developed world unlikely to diminish soon, that sucking sound is likely to get louder. Lastly, you should know the issues about IRREGULAR workers. Irregular migration has emerged as a major issue affecting the management of international migration globally. The seriousness of the problem led the Royal Thai government to convene an international symposium on the issue with the participation of 18 countries and Hong Kong SAR in April 1999.

People all over the world migrate to different countries. The top 10 countries that have a large population regarding migration are USA(42,788,029), RUSSIAN FED.(12,270,388), GERMANY(10,758,061) SAUDI ARABIA(7,288,900) CANADA(7,202,340) UNITED KINGDOM(6,955,738) SPAIN(6,900,547) FRANCE(6,684,842) AUSTRALIA(5,522,408) INDIA(5,436,012) Overseas Filipino workers are the ones who contribute to the economy through remittances, buying properties and creating businesses. Remittance is the transfer of money by foreign worker to his or her job. It also contributed to the economic growth and livelihoods of people worldwide. It fosters in the receiving countries a further economic dependence on global economy instead of building sustainable, local business. In 2012, the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP), the central bank of the Philippines, expects official remittances coursed through banks and agents to grow 5% over 2011 to US$21 billion, but official remittances are only a fraction of all remittances.

Remittances by unofficial, including illegal, channels are estimated by the Asian Bankers Association to be 30 to 40% higher than the official BSP figure. In 2011, remittances were US$20.117 billion. This Philippines is the fourth largest recipient of official remittances after China, India, and Mexico. OFW remittances represent 13.5% of the country’s GDP, the largest in proportion to the domestic economy among the four countries In 2012, approximately 80% of the remittances came from only 7 countries–United States and Canada, the United Kingdom, UAE and Saudi Arabia, Singapore, and Japan. These countries are widely dispersed around the globe–in North America, Europe, the Middle East, Southeast Asia, and East Asia, respectively. Officially recorded remittance flows to developing countries are estimated to have reached $351 billion in 2011, up 8 percent over 2010. For the first time since the global financial crisis, remittance flows to all six developing regions rose in 2011. Growth of remittances in 2011 exceeded our earlier expectations in four regions, especially in Europe and Central Asia (due to higher outward flows from Russia that benefited from high oil prices) and Sub-Saharan Africa (due to strong south-south flows and weaker currencies in some countries that attracted larger remittances).

According to the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA) last 2005, land-based OFWs reached to 733,970 while sea-based workers reached to 241, 707 which make a sum of 981,677. There is a 5.15% growth since 2004’s 933,588.Nowadays, there are1.06 million Overseas Filipinos Workers. 33.4% are unskilled workers, 15.4% are Trades and related workers, 15.1% are plant and machine operators and assemblers.49.3% are males, 50.7% are females. Remittances are 64.7 billion Philippine pesos (equaled 1.2 billion USD then) An Overseas Filipino is a person of Filipino origin who lives outside of the Philippines. This term applies to Filipinos who are both abroad as citizens or permanent residents of a different country, and to those Filipino citizens abroad for a limited, definite period, such as on a work contract or a student. It can also include seamen and others who work outside the Philippines but are not residents, either permanent or temporary, of another country.

They are known by a variety of terms with slightly different and sometimes overlapping meanings. Overseas Filipino Workers or OFWs are Filipinos working abroad that are expected to return permanently either upon the expiration of a work contract or upon retirement. Balikbayans are Filipinos who have become citizens of another country and have returned to the Philippines for a temporary though extended visit. Global Filipino is a term of more recent vintage that less widely used. Former Philippine President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo applied the term Overseas Filipino Investor or OFI for Filipino expatriates who contribute to the economy through remittances, buying properties and creating businesses. As a result of this migration, many countries have substantial Filipino communities. Overseas workers more than double after a decade . The number of overseas workers, based on the 2000 Census of Population and Housing, was 992,397. This accounted for 1.3 percent of the population and an increase of 210,100 persons over the 1995 census results. From only 417,301 in 1990, the number of overseas workers more than doubled after 10 years.

Number of male and female overseas workers are almost equal. Overseas deployment by sex was almost even with the males (50.27 percent) at a little advantage over the females (49.73 percent). This translated to a sex ratio of 101 males for every 100 females. Also, there was a male overseas worker for every 77 males in the Philippine population. The same was true for the females. Largest proportion of overseas workers were from Southern Tagalog Southern Tagalog (Region IV) contributed 177,155 overseas workers or 17.85 percent of all overseas workers. This was followed by the National Capital Region (NCR) with 165,575 persons and Central Luzon (Region III) with 135,802 persons. Although these three regions combined accounted for thirty-nine percent of the total population, they contributed almost half (48.2 percent) of the overseas workers. This could be attributed to the relatively high unemployment in these areas. Another possible reason is that many employers and recruitment agencies were based in NCR and the other two neighboring regions. Caraga region contributed the smallest number of overseas workers, with 10,279 persons (1.04 percent).

Overseas workers had a median age of 32 years. Also, more than half were married. Males are mostly the heads of the households. Regarding to their religion, most were Roman Catholics. Almost all were literate and Tagalog was the predominant ethnic group. Lastly, 13% were academic degree holders. A study was conducted by ADB Philippines: “Enhancing the Efficiency of Overseas Workers Remittances”. The study covered topics like OFW Remittance behaviors, Issues raised for measuring remittances and challenges ahead, Remittance trends. Although the study was conducted in 2005, it’s good to review at this time to see how much progress we’ve made. Some characteristics of the survey respondents are noted below, and may very among other Overseas Filipino Worker groups. 80% of survey respondents regularly remit through banks or other regulated channels. Speed, trustworthiness, reliability and efficient service were rated as most important factors in selecting remittance modes. 9 out of 10 respondents save in banks or through personal hoarding, with 70% maintaining bank accounts in the Philippines and 52% using automated teller machine (ATM) for payments or remittance.

In Singapore, where more than half of respondents were in domestic work which typically paid low wages, 80% stated they were able to save, and almost half indicated that they keep their savings in Singapore banks. A large percentage of respondents, 41% in the nationwide Philippines survey and 49% in Singapore, had to borrow money to pay for recruitment expenses, and 19% said they borrow while working overseas. Average amount of remittance sent monthly is $340. Monthly remittances ranged from $205 to $524. Beneficiaries surveyed use remittances for food, utilities, household expenses, personal care and effects, communications, transportation, education and special occasions. When we talk about the Savings and Spending Behavior, in the nationwide OFW market study, about 90% said they were able to save money.

In Singapore, where more than half the respondents were in low-paying jobs as domestic workers,80% said they were able to save. A relatively high percentage of respondents appeared to keep their savings in their country of work. A higher percentage of survey respondents in the US said they owned a savings account and an automated teller machine (ATM) card in their country of work than those surveyed in Singapore and the Philippines. Possibly due to their higher income levels, US respondents reported a noticeably higher ownership of personal effects and bank accounts compared to respondents from other countries (Table 1.12). However, the percentages on mobile phone ownership were quite close among survey respondents: US 63%, Philippines 65%, and Singapore 70%.

According to the Manila Bulletin, January 12,2013 issue, many overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) who are repatriated from conflict- torn Syria still prefer to work abroad than to stay in the Philippines. Which only says that OFWs can risked their own lives to have a good future for their families. An OFW also said, “The life of an OFW is not easy, I have been through it and I have witnessed the difficult life of domestic helpers of Saudi Arabia” Another true to life example of an OFW is M.B. Pangilinan and he stated that “I’m an OFW in Singapore, 24 years old and have started to become serious about my finances. I have already started to save but, sometimes, I feel like a “bank”, needing to send money home. I am now torn between helping my family and preparing for my future. I have already built my emergency fund, so what’s next for me?” Life of OFWs can also be seen on different films. One of it is the 2005 film entitled “Dubai”, starting Aga Mulach and John Lloyd Cruz.

In the film, Raffy (Aga Mulach) and Andrew (John Lloyd Cruz) were orphan kids and had only each other to depend on. Raffy has spent the last nine years of his life working in Dubai. His ultimate goal is to fulfill a life-long dream: to eventually move to Canada with his young brother, Andrew. The Alvarez brothers are finally united when Andrew goes to Dubai. Another inspiring film of a life of an OFW is the 2008 film with the title “Caregiver”. Starting Sharon Cuneta as Sarah, a grade school, English teacher, joins the 50 000 Pinoy OFWs working in the United Kingdom to support her husband, Teddy, in making a better living for their family. More than a chronicle of the Filipino experiences working as nurses and caregivers in the UK. This story also charts Sarah’s journey to self-discovery- from a submissive wife who makes sacrifices to make way for her Teddy’s aspirations to an empowered woman who finds dignity and pride in a humbling job as a caregiver in London. There are many reasons why many Filipinos work abroad. Whether it is their choice or they are only forced to do so. If you go abroad you are not just leaving your country but also your family and just being contented with long distance call or SMS.

Some of the OFWs are sacrificing many things in exchange of the life abroad. But what are the reasons why a family man, a loving mother and an only child has to leave home and find work. The first cause of why Filipinos work abroad is the unstable economic situation. There is a longstanding lack of confidence in the government’s effort to secure a better future for its citizens may have driven many Filipinos to seek employment overseas. Corruption, gross inefficiency in government functions, relatively high tax rate, and no sound fiscal policy has put a damper on hopes of an ambitious Filipino, who now thinks the grass is greener elsewhere but home. Second is the high unemployment rate. Perennial high unemployment rate has been a chronic problem in a country that produces almost a million college graduates on courses that are deemed popular but whose demand is on decline. Fresh graduates join the labor force, thereby increasing the competition for jobs available. Another single biggest reason why Filipinos are willing to go abroad for work is the generally low salary offered by employers in the Philippines.

Even jobs that are sought after and in demand in certain parts of the world like nurses, engineers and teachers are paid poorly. No wonder many would prefer to work abroad as domestic helpers or office clerks and leave their teaching jobs because they’ll get paid higher overseas. The high unemployment rate in the country brings due advantage to employers who simply hire people on contractual basis. From mall sales ladies to fast food servers, the practice is widespread in the country. This brings a great deal of job insecurity for those who are employed under such conditions. Filipinos inherently don’t mind receiving basic salary, as long as there is security of tenure. However, such type of work arrangement is hard to find for many sectors, knowing that the supply of workers always outstrip the demand for their services. Local employers also prefer to contractual employees because it is easier to let go of them and — a labor loophole in the country — no health benefits and accident insurance coverage necessary.

High unemployment rate ensures a steady flow of applicants, no matter how lame the job offer is. Such unfair situation keeps employers happy almost all the time. Also, OFWs are now more pampered. Believe it or not, OFWs are now covered by better protection, offered advantages (hotel offers only valid to OFWs, special lanes for overseas workers at airport and discounted health insurance premiums to name a few) in addition to being heralded as the nation’s new breed of heroes. Heroes in the coffers of the country, pumping in billions worth of remittance dollars. Nowadays, it’s not so lonely to go abroad anymore Before, going overseas is like sentencing oneself into exile into a hostile land. No friends around, will need to deal with unfamiliar language, weather and food. But now times have changed, many overseas Filipino communities have mushroomed all over the world: Tokyo, Barcelona, Sydney, Dubai, Singapore, New York and more. Cultural programs, tours of Filipino entertainers have brought the overseas Filipino workers closer to home. Not to mention the cheaper long distance rates and availability of the web to communicate with loved ones.

Lastly, Discrimination in job hiring. This is a sad fact that local job applicants have to deal with. Again this has something to do with the glut of available workers willing to get paid lower salaries and not enjoy benefits and paid holidays. Employers tend to pick the “best” candidates but they’re not necessarily the most qualified for the jobs. They are usually those aged between 21 and 30, graduates of schools like University of the Philippines or Ateneo de Manila, and are at least five foot tall for women, even if the job nature don’t require them. The process was leaved qualified but overage applicants in the dark and decide to go broad. This migration of the Filipinos have different effects. We’ll start first with its economic effects. There are some who benefits it. Generally, business owners benefit from having a “flexible workforce.” Immigrants swell the labor pool, especially for unskilled jobs which tend to be more seasonal and/or sensitive to business cycle fluctuations.

A larger labor pool means that businesses can increase and decrease employment as needed, gaining and shedding workers as labor needs change. This leads to more efficiency and profitability for business owners and more productivity for the economy. A larger labor pool drives down wages business owners have to pay to attract workers. In addition, when a large potential labor pool exists, companies have less incentive to make jobs attractive in terms of employment benefits and perks, as well as working conditions. Business owners generally save money on their labor costs – immigrants will often work for less money, and their willingness to accept a lower salary impacts the wages of native laborers. Consumers benefit. Lower labor costs to business owners help drive down the prices of the goods they produce. Lower-priced consumer goods benefit migrant and native consumers alike, enabling them to buy goods that might not otherwise be affordable. Overall economy benefits from immigrant talent.

As a group, skilled immigrants (and even many unskilled immigrants) tend to be entrepreneurial. Economist Stephen Moore has written that there is a “self-selection process” involved in the act of immigration – it is risk-takers and self-motivators who most often brave the journey – and that “by coming, they impart productive energies on the rest of us.” Immigrants often create jobs and have been shown to be on the forefront of technological innovation. Between 1995-1998, 30% of Silicon Valley businesses, including Google, were started by Chinese and Indian immigrants. Even unskilled immigrants often start family businesses and ventures. Everyone benefits when immigrants fill jobs that are difficult to fill. Known as the 3Ds – dirty, dangerous, and difficult – many jobs filled by recent immigrants do not generally attract native workers. Yet, the economies of developed countries are dependent on these manual labor and service sector jobs –construction workers, custodians, home health care workers, etc.

Having immigrant labor fill these lower-end jobs frees native workers up to take jobs on the next rung of the ladder. The return on immigration for society grows over the course of subsequent generations. The children and grandchildren of immigrants, on average, do better in school and are more productive than their native counterparts. Employment is high and use of welfare benefits low among second and third generation immigrants. As a group, they tend to pay taxes, create jobs, and give back to their communities. On the other side, there are who loses. While business owners experience short-term gains in profitability from a plentiful and flexible labor supply, they may actually lose in the long run. Companies become used to not needing to make reforms or modernize or invest in the productivity of their workers, and thus compromise their long-term competitiveness in a globalized marketplace.

The Economist magazine presents the California raisin industry as a case in point, noting that cheap immigrant labor has discouraged farms from adopting automated harvesting like the more profitable grape industries worldwide. Native workers pay a price for cheap immigrant labor. Most experts believe that this is generally not significant in terms of unemployment rates – rarely do immigrants “steal jobs” from native workers; they are more likely to “steal jobs” from each other with newly arrived immigrants taking jobs from those already in the labor market. Yet, there is a small negative effect on native wages, mostly among unskilled workers (particularly those without a high school diploma), as immigrant wages drive down the value of labor in lower pay grades where workers are plentiful. However, percentage declines in native worker wages attributed to immigration must be weighed against the benefits native workers gain in lower priced consumer goods and from general economic growth attributed to immigrant labor.

Native and immigrant laborers both suffer when there is little incentive to improve working conditions. When companies don’t need to compete for labor, there is little need to enhance the attractiveness of jobs. Trade unions and workers’ advocates lose leverage when there is a line of people outside the factory ready to take the job of a dissatisfied or striking worker. Do immigrants consume public services and/or welfare benefits in line with their tax contributions? Accurate measurements are difficult to obtain because national, state and local laws differ on eligibility for education, health and welfare services, and on the instruments used to collect taxes from illegal immigrants. Most believe that immigrants end up paying for their use of public services through tax contributions and general economic contributions to society, but this may take more than one generation.

The balance sheet on immigration’s effects on a country of destination is not merely economic. Even though immigration’s net economic effect on a host nation’s economy is positive, the debate about its larger effects is far from resolved. As a RAND corporation study quoted in The Economist summarizes, “the economic pluses and minuses are much smaller than the political and emotional salience” of the issue. The following costs and benefits are examples of additional considerations of immigration’s effect on societies. Let’s discuss first the benefits. Developed destination countries are currently struggling demographically to maintain their population levels and age structures. With low fertility and longer life spans, many MDCs are in danger of developing skewed dependency ratios in the future (number of people in the workforce to the number of people too young or too old to work). Immigrants are an answer to this dilemma, as they are usually of working and childbearing age. They keep the population growing, boosting the dependency ratio in a favorable direction. (See Demographics in Special Issue Section).

Immigrants add a cultural richness to a society, bringing with them unique customs and traditions that become part of the multilayered fabric of a nation. Beneath the obvious food, flag, festival and folk hero contributions, a multicultural diverse society is more culturally and intellectually stimulating and innovative than a mono-cultural one. Many advances made by the human race have been the result of contact between different peoples, in artistic and scientific realms. Efficiency is generated by a pooling of diverse talent in geographical hubs. Urbanization tends to accompany internal and international immigration. The movement of people is partly a story of people moving from rural to urban areas, or small cities to larger ones, whether they cross international borders or not. The growth of cities brings together talent that is highly conducive to innovation, increasing the economic and social vibrancy of a nation. All of these benefits have corresponding costs. Some natives fear immigrant populations will alter the religious and socio-cultural foundations of their nation.

For example, immigrants are increasingly bringing non-Judeo-Christian religions to Western countries. Conversely, within Christianity, Hispanic populations are boosting the membership of the Catholic Church. Some fear that family practices such as preference for male children in Asian societies may be aided by modern reproductive technologies and alter the gender balance in countries of destination for this population. There are those who raise the issue of immigrants changing national identity and coherence. Some fear the dilution of national symbols, narratives and experiences that have traditionally formed a country’s heritage and image abroad. Security concerns are associated with immigration when porous borders are conceivably able to facilitate the transport of enemies of the state and radical ideologies. Major terrorist events occurring in destination countries, such as the US and UK, carried out by foreign nationals and/or 1st and 2nd generation immigrants feed this fear.

The presence of large ethnic immigrant interest groups impacts the foreign policy of the host country toward their countries of origin. US lawmakers develop policies toward Mexico with the American Hispanic communities in mind; few politicians make statements regarding US policy on Israel or the Middle East in general without regard for the sentiment of American Jewish groups. Host nations are adversely affected when internal conflicts within the home countries follow immigrants to their new homes.

The violence that accompanies rivalries between different Italian “mafia” families in the US or between Russian exiles in the UK creates criminal and public safety concerns for host nations. Finally, urbanization associated with migration has a significant downside as illustrated by the slums of many global cities. Service delivery and general capacity often do not keep pace with the growth of urban populations in places like China, India and South Africa, dragging down the quality of life for many immigrant and native residents. Large global cities like New York and London provide a microcosm of the rich-poor divide that motivates much migration in the first place. Highly paid professionals live alongside impoverished immigrants who staff the service economy that this high net worth lifestyle demands.

Conclusion and Recommendation
It is undeniable that life in the Philippines is hard. With the monthly increase in transportation fees and basic commodities, the closing of local companies and factories, not to mention the economic crisis the world has been going through, Filipino citizens, both rich and poor, have been suffering a lot. As a result, people hoped to find a better life in other countries. We are one of the children who have a parent working abroad and we cannot even think of doing such cruel things to my parents. We love them so much and we will truly do everything like studying very hard for them to be happy. Someday, we will help and do everything for them in exchange to everything that they had done for us. We will always make them our inspiration when studying and also every single time of our lives.

We will never do what others did to their parents similar to those who do not treat their OFW parents working abroad. It is really hard to have a parent working outside the country because the love and care of a parent is different from any other. Nevertheless, we still have to endure it and be brave so as to attain our goals not only for ourselves but also for them. The sacrifices of Overseas Filipino Workers cannot be avoided, as they need to struggle to fulfill their dreams and to achieve success in life. Those hardships and sacrifices should bear good fruits rather than withered tree.

References
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http://education.nationalgeographic.com/migrationguidestatement http://www.bfm.admin.ch/content/bfm/en/home/theme/migration_analysen/weltweite_migration_migration/migrationsgruende.html http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Remittance

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/caregiver_(film)
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http://worldsavvy.org/monitor/index.php?option=com_context_viw=article_id=427_