While most Overseas Filipino Workers (OFWs) earn better in other countries, some of

them still experience financial problems despite years of hard work due to inefficient
money management.

The Commission on Filipinos Overseas (CFO) has identified over-dependency of

families and relatives of OFWs as one of the common causes why workers abroad
struggle with their finances, despite their higher pay.

“People tend to think that once you go abroad, it seems that you get a higher income
and that will solve all your problems,” said Andrea Anolin, CFO executive assistant
for joint migration and development initiative.

Anolin added that an OFW may already have financial problems even before leaving
the Philippines, such as the accumulation of debts due to over-borrowing in the belief
that the money can be returned once hired overseas.

“The families who are left behind and also the migrants themselves have very
unrealistic expectations. They equate going overseas with an automatic improvement
in the quality of their lives,” she said.

In addition, some OFWs are said to easily give in to the requests of their families and
relatives for remittances and gifts from abroad, thus the failure to save sufficient
money for the future.

“We don’t really save for the rainy days. We don’t really think long term. Our plans,
our objectives are vague and we don’t really know how to get from one place to the
next. So it’s easy to be lured by commercial spending,” Anolin said.

According to Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP), eight out of 10 Filipinos don't have
bank accounts -- an indication that financial literacy among Filipinos is not high, as
CFO pointed out.

While it is not that bad for OFWs to spend for their families with imported
commodities, CFO stressed that they should not let themselves end up without savings
and should not forget to save more than they spend in order to achieve a common goal
of creating a sustainable income in their homeland.

“It’s not the lack of money to save eh. It’s the lack of the will to save,” said Warner
Dawal, senior emigrant services officer for Peso Sense Program.

“The most common misconception is the families here in the Philippines think that the
remittance they receive is forever,” he added.