MANILA and ADELAIDE — Remittances from overseas Filipinos expectedly dipped during the first four months of 2020, including the first full month of a pandemic’s havoc on the incomes of the world’s migrant workers.
“Cash remittances” from overseas Filipinos amounted to US$9.448 billion, which is three percent less than the US$9.739 billion over the same four-month in 2019, data from the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (the Philippines’ central bank) show.
Over the same four-month period year-on-year, cash remittances from land-based overseas Filipinos plunged by some 3.5 percent (US$7.334 versus US$7.597 billion); those remittances from seafarers also declined by 1.3 percent (US$2.113 versus US$2.142 billion).
The decline in four-month remittances year-on-year comes as the Philippine government announced last July 16 the “largest single mass repatriation flight in Philippine history:” 410 OFWs were repatriated last July 12 from Lebanon via a Qatar Airways flight.
Declining remittances as well as repatriations, job displacements and health issues will all hit overseas Filipinos in this pandemic year.
Multilateral institutions and Filipino economists had predicted declines in remittances to developing countries and to the Philippines, respectively, because of COVID-19. (The Philippines received US$30.133 billion of cash remittances in 2019.)
The World Bank estimated 20 percent declines in remittances to all countries (from US$714 billion in 2019 to US$572 billion this year) and to developing countries (from US$554 billion in 2019 to US$445 billion this year).
As for Philippine remittances, Congressman Joey Salceda of Albay province predicted last April a US$5 billion decline year-on-year for these cash remittances. Also last April, Economist Alvin Ang of Ateneo de Manila University projected a base estimate of US3 billion and a worst estimate of US$6 billion of lesser remittances for 2020.
Many countries began their lockdowns and quarantine measures mid-March, as local and foreign workers started being retrenched late March to April. Some host countries gave stimulus packages to displaced workers and businesses, on top of unemployment insurance for those migrants who are already permanent residents.
But overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) or temporary migrant workers felt the wrath of the health impacts and economic disruptions brought about by the pandemic. Around 8,915 temporary and permanent overseas Filipinos from 64 countries have or had contracted SARS-CoV-2, says the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) as of July 15.
About 82,057 OFWs had been repatriated, DFA said in a July 13 update. The number covers some 43,749 land-based OFWs and 38,308 seafarers, the latter mostly working in cruise ships.
There have also been reports of some nine seafarers who had committed suicides while on quarantine or waiting to be repatriated home by their shipping companies.
The Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) projected more OFWs to be repatriated in the coming months. DOLE had also provided P10,000 (or US$200) in cash assistance to majority of the 224,756 OFWs who had lost their jobs, whether they were repatriated or who are still in host countries.
As for returned migrant workers, many of them were being driven away by residents in Philippine rural communities even if they had registered negative tests results for COVID-19.
The April remittance figures from BSP registered historic lows for monthly declines in not just “cash remittances” but also in “personal remittances.” Personal remittances not just include the cash remittances but also in-kind remittances, household-to-household transfers between naturalized Filipinos abroad to families in the Philippines, and “capital transfers” between these transnational Filipino households (like money for house constructions).
The 3.0 percent decline year-on-year of overseas Filipinos’ cash remittances as of this April covers the cumulative totals of cash remittances.
However, on a month-on-month basis, both “personal” and “cash” remittances declined by 16 percent —being historic lows.
“Personal remittances” amounted to US$10.494 billion as of April 2020.
Since the central bank adopted a sixth edition of a reporting tool to record the Balance of Payments (a summary of country’s transactions with the rest of the world) in June 2012, BSP is recording both “personal” and “cash” remittances from the year 2010.
According to the major destination countries of Filipinos for work and permanent settlement, those countries whose Filipino migrants sent lower monies year-on-year were: Canada (-15.5%), Hong Kong (-0.5%), Malaysia (-30.2%), Australia (-34.2%), New Zealand (-59.1%), Germany (-32.3%), Italy (-9.7), the United Kingdom (-17.8%), Kuwait (-24.6%), Saudi Arabia (-23.2%) and the United Arab Emirates (-17.8%).
However, remittances from Filipinos working and living in the United States (7.1%), Singapore (4.7%), Taiwan (11.3%), Oman (54.7%), Japan (9.0%), and Qatar (5,.6%) were still on positive territory year-on-year as of April.
The Philippines has an estimated 10.3 million overseas Filipinos in some 200 countries and territories.
As of July 14, the Philippines has 57,545 COVID-19 cases (including 1,603 deaths), says the Department of Health.
Freelance journalist Kristine Anne Macasiray is a 2019 product of the University of Santo Tomas (UST) Journalism program. Jeremaiah Opiniano teaches journalism at the same university.