Crisis forcing OFWs to send less cash home

WASHINGTON D.C. -A US-generated financial crisis is testing overseas Filipino Workers’ ability to send cash home, an economist in the Philippines 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. BSP reports of remittances from Europe, the US and Asia pointed to a similar slowdown in remittances and balikbayan boxes for love ones in the Philippines this Christmas season. Rodney J. Jaleco of ABS-CBN news in Washington and Lito Katigbak of the Philippine Star have reported a decline in the remittances and balikbayan boxes by Filipino Americans in the Washington metropolitan area. Balikbayan boxes and remittance companies in the West coast have also reported a noticeable decline this Christmas season.) Even before the financial crisis, Ang had warned that remittance flows especially from the United States and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia are entering a “plateau.”[ad#postbot468x60]