MANILA – Month-on-month remittance data reflecting downward spikes may reveal the impact of world oil and commodities prices adjustment to economies like the Philippines that are dependent on cash flow from abroad, economist Alvin Ang said.

“While it is too early to see the effect, we should be on guard of the monthly growth rates of remittance inflows and understand the ‘Philippine cycle’ of these flows,” the University of Santo Tomas economics professor said.

MANILA – A US-generated financial crisis is testing overseas Filipino workers’ ability to send cash home, an economist said using government data on remittances.

“If OFWs persist in sending more money, it will not be physically sustainable for them,” Alvin Ang told the OFW Journalism Consortium before monetary authorities reported on August 15 that OFWs sent home a record $1.5 billion in June.

MANILA — Fifteen down, 15 organizations more to go, and the global conference on migration and development (GFMD) organizers remain optimistic these advocates can use the conference to lobby for greater protection for migrant workers.

“We’re aiming to come up with recommendations na mapipilitan ang gobyerno na ma-consider [to pressure the government to consider] such recommendations”, Second Global Forum on Migration and Development organizer Ildefonso Bagasao told the OFW Journalism Consortium.

MANILA – Migrant workers have yet to be convinced errant banking processes are things of the past before they see the veracity of pooled savings for investment in development projects, a recent study by the International Labor Organization revealed.

The study titled “The Contribution of Migrant Organisations to Income-Generating Activities in their Countries of Origin” focused on the experience of the Philippines in developing money from overseas Filipino workers as pooled investments.

MANILA – Padala or the money brought home by vacationing overseas Filipinos here, is on its seven-year low, based on data from the Philippines’s central bank.

Migration and remittances experts call these cash —$506 million in 2007— as “informal remittances.” This includes money that did not pass through “formal” banking channels.