The latest report in 2018 from World Bank says that the Philippines is ranked fourth among the countries that received the highest remittance. This only means that there are many overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) working abroad and sending their salaries to their families in the Philippines.
However, the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) revealed that one out of three OFW families is able to earn or save from their income. Most OFWs fail to save money.
A research conducted by the Commission on Filipinos Overseas (CFO) stated that OFWs and their families are not able to save from their income because of the following reasons: OFWs and their families have a little knowledge of how to manage their income, bad debts, applying for work abroad is very costly that leads OFWs borrow money or sell their properties to finance their application, inability to budget their money for their expenses, the ‘one-day millionaire’ mentality, children’s education, and monthly bills.
One ex-OFW, Carina Gonzales, 50 years old, was interviewed by GMA. She shared her story of being an OFW. She worked abroad as a domestic helper for 16 years but was not able to save money. When asked why was not she able to save, she said that first and foremost she had debts that she needed to pay.
She spent 16 years working as a domestic helper in three different countries: Malaysia, Dubai and Saudi. She has three children to whom she was sending 3,000 pesos monthly. She was saving 3,000 for herself and 4,000 to pay her debts. Her children were left to the care of their grandparents while she was away working.
She emphasized that the very reason why she was not able to save money was because she was paying her debts for many years and this was devastating for her and for her children because they could not live the life they want because of the debts.
Carina was diagnosed with diabetes and high blood pressure in 2013 and she was forced to go home to the Philippines in 2015 because she needed medication and rest. She went back home without any savings.
CFO advises all OFWs and to all Filipino families as well that if they want to learn more about saving money, they can log in to their website and have an online training or learn from their program Pesosense. They will be given a certificate after completing the training.
Source: GMA News
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