Enhancing Filipino Remittance

Enhancing Filipino Remittance Modes Using WDT’s Micro Payment Processing Systems Integrated into SMART’s Mobile Network, With A Concentration In the Hawaii Filipino Community Author: Czarina N Amian History & Immigration Filipinos have relied on overseas employment as a means of survival. The remittances that the filipino overseas workers and immigrants send home are spent fulfilling the basic needs of the family, better housing, educational opportunities for children, and starting or investing in small businesses. At the point of retirement, a notable percentage of Filipino Americans plan on returning back to the Philippines because of the significance of the dollar in the Philippine economy. In 2001 the Philippine government had set a target to send one million workers out every year, a tell-tale sign that migration is an important part of the country’s future development plans and prospects. The Philippines is known to be a country of ‘emigration’, in which the development of culture migration in the country has been greatly aided by government institutionalization. History documents the first wave of filipino immigrants to arrive in Hawaii in 1906, however, the Philippines’ ascent as a major labor exporter started in the 1970’s, which was initially fueled by the absence of economic development, political instability, a growing population, high unemployment levels and low wages. The oil crises in 1973 made the country’s situation even worse as they became hard-pressed to provide jobs and decent wages. At the same time, oil-rich Gulf countries needed workers to realize their ambitious infrastructure projects, and with the supply and demand factors converging, the Philippines was ripe for large-scale labor migration, an opportunity that the Marcos government realized. Although, the supply of Filipino workers oversees was supposed to be temporary, the continuing demand of workers in the Gulf countries and opening of new labor markets in other regions of the world...