Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Strategies & Market Trends : 2026 TeoTwawKi ... 2032 Darkest Interregnum -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: energyplay who wrote (8243)	8/13/2006 9:36:08 AM
From: Slagle	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 217753

Energyplay, Remittances are really important in the Philippines. I don't have any statistics, if you read the Philippine newpapers, you will see that one government bureau or another is always releasing stats on remittances, and it seems the trend is always upwards. OTOH I wouldn't believe any Philippine government statistics of any kind as they are masters at using figures to ward off critics, both domestic and foreign. An example: Their census bureau has as its main task the job of confounding and bamboozeling World Bank and United Nations do-gooders and population control fanatics who have been for decades exerting maximum pressure on the country to cut the birth rate, which the country is definately not going to do. I think the official population of the Philippines is something like 89 million, but many folks think it is over 100 million, maybe WAY over. As long as I can remember the official population of Metro Manila has been 13.8 million, in the meantime, the place has doubled in size, nearly. <grin> It could be, though that the birth rate has dropped somewhat maybe in the last five years. But in the barrio there are still very large crowds of very young children, just like always. Anyway, remittances are huge. Just the other day the Philippine government announced that there are 30,000 OFW's in Lebanon, of all places, and that they are trying to evacuate them to Cyprus. Now that means that the 30,000 Filipinos in Lebanon have all gone through official channels to get their job in Lebanon, which would mean that they were placed by a licensed labor contractor and that they spent two weeks or more in Manila going to government sponsored classes learning about working abroad. And many of them would never even see any pay until they return, as this is held by the contractor or sent home to the family. And the government gets a cut too. So, in addition to the 30,000 there are probably more working there legally or illegally about which the government has no information. This would include anybody who managed to find a job there without going through the official OFW program in Manila and I suppose this could be an additional thousands. I think that there are nearly a million Filipinos in Saudi. Like I said, it is huge. There are powerful elements in the Philippines who are mortally opposed to the OFW phenomena and all other forms of Filipino migration, including the "mail order bride" activity. This would include most Catholic clergy and a whole array of Filipino nationalists who think the country looses their "best and brightest". But in general the environment is very accepting of the business. Many Filipinos abroad, even those with careers and spouses there send money back home to build themselves a "retirement house" which is to occupied by the family until the "retirement" comes. Outside of remittance driven activity I am not sure that the Philippines has much of an economy. There is a large agriculture sector, but almost nothing grown there really competes on the world market. The OFW program really got underway after 1992 when the GATT tariff reductions began to bite. The country used to have a big textile and shoe industry but no more, having been opened up to the "lowest cost producer" nations. This, in my opinion, was a big mistake. And I am not really sure about the demographics. Like I said, there could have been some relatively recent reduction in the birthrate. But the country is still slap full of babies. It could be that the coming generation, as always there, is the "boomer" generation. Slagle