Going abroad trumps prayer during hard times
For the majority of Filipinos, prayer is no longer the solution to their problems. Going abroad, or having at least having one family member work abroad, is.
This was one of the findings of the Pulse Asia poverty module survey on July 2008, dubbed “Crunch Time and the Filipino Household” presented during the forum on the Impact of the Economic Crisis on Microfinance sponsored by the Peace and Equity Foundation (PEF), a non-government organization dedicated to poverty alleviation, and microfinance institution PinoyMe held at the Asian Institute of Management last September 1.
“Migrating or having at least one family member become an Overseas Filipino Worker (OFW) is the ultimate coping strategy of the Filipino household during these hard times, eclipsing even prayer,” Ana Maria Tabunda, Pulse Asia Executive Director, revealed.
According to the survey, the number of Filipinos working abroad grew from over 600,000 to over 1 million during the last 10 years.
Remittances, however, outpaced the number of deployed OFWs, more than doubling from US$7 billion in 1998 to over US$ 15 billion in 2007.
The PEF commissioned survey also revealed that close to 25 percent of Filipino households receive monetary and other contributions from abroad, with average share of contributions from abroad to total family income up to 28 percent.
Overall inflation rates, which hit 12.2 percent in July of this year, predictably were felt by majority of Filipino households as over 80 percent of those polled strongly felt the deterioration in the national economy.
In fact, the number of Filipinos who feel that the economy is worse now than it was three years ago increased by 20 percentage points from the March 2008 to the July 2008 survey (66 to 86 percent).
The biggest increase came from Mindanao (from 72 in March 2008 to 93 in July) and the ABC socio economic class (from 61 to 83 percentage points).
Surprisingly, despite the increase in fuel prices, majority of Filipino households felt that an increase in the price of food in general, and rice in particular, has a greater immediate impact than increases in oil or electricity prices.
“This is probably because households that are most directly affected by fuel and electricity increases belong to the upper socio-economic deciles (those whose incomes are higher), while the lower income classes are mostly affected by increase in food prices,” Tabunda surmised.
The survey also revealed that more Filipinos feel that the quality of life of their families, as well as the national quality of life, deteriorated. Seventy-five percent of those polled felt that their quality of life is worse now than it was last year, up from 59 percent in March.
Aside from going abroad and praying, other coping strategies cited by those polled include belt-tightening (reducing consumption of food, non-food items, notably electricity, and services), looking for other sources of income, borrowing money, and dipping into savings.
Over 66 percent said that they spent less for food, 50 percent for electricity, and 33 percent for transportation and fuel.
Despite reduced food consumption/spending, the percentage of respondents saying that the food consumed by their families is inadequate (33 percent) is essentially unchanged since October 2007, the survey revealed.
“But double digit increases in the percentage experiencing food inadequacy are seen among Mindanaoans and those belonging to socio-economic class E,” Tabunda added.
Going without food has also been a disturbing option, with three percent of households (approximately 530,000) saying that they had at least one family member who did not eat anything for at least one whole day in the past month because they did not have money to buy food.
The findings from the survey bring to the fore the essence of microenterprise and microfinance as poverty reduction strategies, given that these allow the poor to gain extra income direly needed especially in times of crisis.
However, while microfinance industry players admit that hard times make their task even harder, there is no other recourse but to plough on.
“PEF and PinoyMe efforts at poverty alleviation through microfinance/ microenterprise development will not be derailed, but human and operating costs are admittedly spiraling upward,” Peace and Equity Foundation executive director Veronica Villavicencio said.
The survey, however, isn’t all bleak as it puts forward some suggestions by those polled on how government can help alleviate poverty.
According to the survey, majority of those polled believe that government can help solve poverty by ensuring adequate supply of food at affordable prices, ensuring availability of work, and maintaining prices of prime necessities other than food at affordable levels.
The survey also does not believe that an economic downturn will lead to a political crisis, saying that the country has been through a worse crisis (the 1984 to 85 recession) “when overseas workers were not yet the phenomenal force or overseas work the escape valve that it has become today”.
“Barring extraordinary political blunders, the present administration should be able to weather the political fallout of an economic crisis, even a rice shortage, provided a 2010 presidential election is in view,” Tabunda said.
“However, this survey was conducted prior to the Mindanao ancestral domain (BJE) issue,” she quips.