Tuesday, January 16, 2007
By Jeremaiah M. Opiniano
SAN FRANCISCO, USA - Albert's work shift as a nurse, at least twice or thrice a week, is from 3 p.m. to 7 a.m. the next day. A few minutes of watching Filipino television shows plus a few munches of breakfast soon followed, and then he hit the sack.
I was an 80-day boarder at his home when I was in this city for a 100-day media fellowship on overseas Filipinos. So one day that I was about to leave, Albert's voice was heard even as his door was closed. He was on his weekly phone call to family members and relatives in the Philippines.
I did not hear much of the discussions. But over a meal, in episodes of talks with him and my fellow border Renato, Albert's explanation of the phone conversations reveals a familiar theme facing Filipinos abroad like him.
It is about money, about working hard abroad and sending some income back home, and about a litany of frustrations of whatever happened to the amount sent back home.
Renato also has his weekly phone conversations, but with his US citizen mother based in Los Angeles. Renato's mother just sent some US$400 to his sibling and in-laws. Just some weeks after, the remittance sent had dried up, and the family back home is asking Renato's mother for additional remittance.
He was cooking then while talking with his mother over the mobile phone. But as the conversation became serious - also about handling money - Renato's faced turned sour: "They thought it is easy to earn money here and all they do is ask and ask for more."
Earning additional income is the root cause of many Filipinos' overseas emigration for either temporary contract work or permanent settlement. As colleague Tony Ranque of the Economic Resource Center for Overseas Filipinos (Ercof) would say, it is "about love" that many of these compatriots of ours left abroad.
"It is love, therefore, that should make you financially literate and make you handle your money properly," Ranque said in one of Ercof's activities in a European country.
I do not claim to be a finance expert, not even in the caliber of businessman Francisco Colayco. I admit only starting to save some money thanks to being involved in advocacy work for overseas Filipinos (of which one of the advocacy themes is financial literacy). I am, in fact, a convert of Tony's financial literacy messages: saving loose coins, and accumulating many of those, is quite easy-and it works.
The rudiments of financial literacy are however something that is not easy to imbibe unto overseas Filipinos. Sure it is easy to teach this tip and give that financial advice to overseas Filipinos. Yet when you are the one who is abroad, managing your own finances and needs as well as those of your family and relatives back home, it is certainly a challenge.
Given an overseas Filipino's freedom by being abroad, and the numerous things in the host country that will really tempt the consumer in him or in her, one will really spend. Noticeably, like every time I join Renato shopping, he always strives to get the cheapest buy but with assured quality and good taste. Since he made good buys, he is able to save.
Both Albert and Renato even have fits of thrift in their daily lives. Since San Francisco is a chilly place and food stored in the refrigerator can still be consumed even days after, the Sunday night dinner that Renato cooks can be consumed the next two days and, if there are still some leftovers, in some breakfast meals. Both of them work hard to earn more, and they still manage to have the energy to work extended hours by just a small lunch box of rice and ulam.
I think a basic financial literacy lesson is to "love yourself and reward yourself" by saving and investing for your own needs, such as insurance. When you try to join Filipinos abroad and find out what do they do to reward themselves, you would notice their pursuit of erasing the deprivation that they had when they were still in the Philippines.
Albert just bought a two-storey home last July, and I was just in time to be his border so that his monthly mortgage of US$5,000 will supplement payments coming from his salary and overtime pay. Weeks before I left for Manila, he just bought a second-hand Mercedes Benz since he had grown tired of always walking to his workplace. He also wanted to enjoy his increasing bounty.
Since moving to the US some three years ago, Renato had been paying monthly mortgage of US$400 for a family house in San Pedro, Laguna. He also bought a condominium unit so that he has a place to stay whenever he goes home to the Philippines during vacation leaves.
Undocumented migrants Rico and Elizabeth (not their real names) have been working "underground" for some three years already. The income is not enough by US standards. But the couple claims that God has really blessed them, and they are still able to send some money to Elizabeth's parents and Rico's nephews.
"Our biggest purchase made was a US$150 microwave," Elizabeth said. "We are happy that we are still able to eat some good food, save money and put it beneath our pillows, and send some money back home."
In countries like the US, you will not survive there if you do not have a credit card. The credit card is not only one's requisite to make purchases, but it is something shopping centers, banks and property firms use to trust the consumer. "In as much as you want to eliminate your credit card dues," Renato explains, "a forthcoming credit card greets you and you have no choice."
Again I am not a finance expert. But given my previous immersion with these overseas Filipinos, financial literacy for Filipinos abroad is no easy cookie. The family and relatives back home are also part of the equation, and in fact play an important role in the financial success or failure of the overseas Filipino. That's where Albert's and Renato's stories come in.
The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas, in a January 3 banner story by BusinessMirror, claims the increasing number of financially literate overseas Filipinos has pulled up the country's low savings rate from the dumps. Credit that to BSP's periodic financial literacy seminars last year, BSP deputy governor Diwa Guinigundo said.
Unfortunately, no definite numbers can back up such claim. Meanwhile, a 2002 University of the Philippines thesis in AB Economics by Jose Ramon Idang and Cheddie Yap ("Determinants of the Saving Behavior of Filipino Households") had a major finding: "Filipino households are not significantly sensitive to transitory income (coming from abroad). Thus, as more Filipino families have relatives working abroad, or as relatives receive increasing amounts of remittances, the less then that they see the need to increase their savings."
Given all these anecdotal and empirical observations about the savings behavior of Filipinos abroad and their families back home, it is a challenge then to design a financial literacy design that understands the lives and conditions of overseas Filipinos and the families and relatives left behind. They all have a unique dynamic, and I guess it takes a ton of effort to change mindsets among us Filipinos, including those abroad, in terms of saving and handling money properly.
Designing such kind of a module is Ranque's current endeavor. For the meantime, Albert and Renato continue to deal with their financial situations and those of their families, and they are based overseas. And there are millions more of them in luckier or less-lucky jobs overseas
Just before I came back to Manila, I gave my copy of Colayco's module packaged for the Overseas Workers Welfare Administration to both nurses. I hope reading the book's tips will work for them, and their litanies will be lessened.
Comments are welcome at ofw_philanthropy@yahoo.com (the email address of the Institute for Migration and Development Issues).
http://www.sunstar.com.ph/static/man/2007/01/16/oped/jeremaiah.m..opiniano.html
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