Phil. Migration and Development Statistical Almanac

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Foreword

Saturday, 15 November 2008

This Philippine Migration and Development Statistical Almanac is a result of three years of monitoring, compiling, and eventually harmonizing statistics on Filipinos’ international migration by the Institute for Migration and Development Issues (IMDI). The Almanac is also a fitting tribute to the hardworking women and men within the government—from both statistical and non-statistical agencies—who have dutifully encoded and compiled raw and processed data surrounding overseas Filipinos for the general public’s benefit.

The Migration and Development Statistical Almanac attempts to present data from administrative sources, as well as data from surveys and other selected quantitative studies, on Filipinos’ international migration and development. The data here flesh out the positive and negative consequences surrounding the overseas migration phenomenon to both the Philippines and to the countries where Filipinos go to.
The Almanac does not aim to immediately make sense of the various data here. The publication rather presents these various datasets, regardless of where the data came from and the variances of such data. Government data-crunchers themselves, for decades now, have yet to determine a way to address these variances.
As early as 1989, some Filipino migration scholars have called for the harmonization of international migration statistics. Migration scholar Benjamin Carino (1989: page 1265) wrote: “Despite the importance of international migration for national policy, efforts to correct the serious data limitations in the area of (international) statistics have been limited and uncoordinated.”

Two decades after, administrative and statistical agencies have improved considerably in collecting international migration statistics. Some even remark that the Philippines is a global model in international migration statistics. But there remain limitations in the country’s international migration statistical system, as well as the entire Philippine Statistical System and the agencies under it. Recent events, such as the Second Global Forum on Migration and Development last October in Manila, also point to the clamor to improve international migration statistics within countries, and make these statistics more accessible.

Some interesting facts emerge from this Statistical Almanac:

There are 239 countries identified to have Filipinos. Some 209 of these countries are members of the United Nations, while 30 others are non-members (including islands and territories unfamiliar to many of us). Filipinos go to these countries as temporary migrants (or more renowned as “overseas Filipino workers”), permanent migrants, and undocumented or irregular migrants;
Temporary migrants from the Philippines, says various datasets, can either have males or females as the leading group by gender based on annual data releases. But the permanent migration (that includes marriage migrants who have married foreign partners) is predominantly female. Filipino seafarers are a visible group in terms of number;
Regions located in Luzon island —the National Capital Region, Southern Tagalog, Central Luzon, and the Ilocos Region— have consistently emerged as the top origin areas of temporary and permanent overseas migrants, as well as the hubs of many households receiving assistance from abroad;
Overseas workers have the Middle East and Asia as the leading regions of destination for temporary migrants, whereas North America is the leading region of destination for permanent migrants. The Philippines-Saudi Arabia corridor is the biggest migration corridor for temporary migrants, while the Philippines-United States migration corridor is the biggest for permanent migrants;
The Philippines, from 1975 to 2007, has received over-US$120 billion in cash remittances —all passing through the formal banking system. And in an initial attempt to estimate remittances plowing into each and every Philippine province, triennial estimates show that families receiving assistance from migrants abroad got PhP208.848 billion in 2000 (covering 1.107 million migrant households), PhP245.856 billion in 2003 (1.31 million households), and PhP348.524 billion in 2006 (1.601 million households);
Males have more total and average remittances yearly than females; and
Comparisons between estimated remittances during the year 2003 and the audited gross incomes of provincial governments show that remittances of migrant households are more than the total local government incomes in 55 of 79 provinces.

A core group composed of representatives from the Institute for Migration and Development Issues, the Commission on Filipinos Overseas (CFO), the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA), and the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP), and the University of Santo Tomas - Social Research Center (SRC) has attempted to present the best possible data in this Statistical Almanac. The core group drew the datasets presented here from authoritative datasets.

However, the user is advised to take note of the pitfalls of using currently available data on overseas Filipinos, and on socio-economic conditions in the Philippines and in various countries. Migrant flows and remittances data may be underestimated due to the following factors: using informal remittance channels; prevailing irregular migration; ambiguity in the definition of the word “migrants” both within the Philippines and globally; and more importantly the fluid, rapid movement of Filipinos in various countries. It is difficult to track the movement of overseas Filipinos.

This Statistical Almanac may have presented voluminous data, but more considerable effort is needed to improve the quality of these international migration data. We suggest improvement in the collection and presentation of statistics surrounding Filipinos’ international migration in the coming years.

But for now, stakeholders in the migration and development community will benefit the most from this Statistical Almanac. Emphasis goes to stakeholders based in the provinces and in overseas countries which have been searching for easily accessible and reliable data, as well as “localized” data that their provinces and countries can relate into.

More importantly, the publisher of this Statistical Almanac is reminding users to maximize the contents of this resource for developmental purposes. People may have varied views on development, as well as who primarily benefits from such an approach on development. Overseas Filipinos and their families should primarily benefit from International migration and development initiatives. When migrants and their families have benefited, we hope that Philippine rural communities will maximize migration’s benefits so that the entire nation gets more supplementary resources from international migration —and use these resources efficiently and equitably. If this situation happens, hopefully the Philippines will lessen her dependency to continued out-migration as an explicit strategy for development, and minimize the addressing of the many problems brought about by overseas migration.

This Statistical Almanac hopes that the general Filipino public can begin to link international migration and development issues precisely and empirically —combining anecdotal evidence with the voluminous data contained herewith. The Institute for Migration and Development Issues and its collaborating partners and supporters also hope that this Almanac’s data and core messages will provide strategic inputs to policy-making (especially to our local government units, migrant-welfare agencies, and agencies involved in poverty reduction and social development). Users should also feel free to use the datasets here for their own purposes, provided the government agencies and the “Migration and Development Statistical Almanac” are cited.

Gratitude is also extended to the partner organizations that have made this Almanac project possible: the Peace and Equity Foundation (PEF), the Philippine Migrants’ Rights Watch (PMRW), Feed the Hungry-Philippines (FtH), Save-a-Tahanan Inc. (STI) and the Economic Resource Center for Overseas Filipinos (ERCOF) Amid today’s global economic crisis that literally challenged the production of this Almanac, these partners have shown their generosity to put this databank into fruition. If there is a demand to reprint more copies of this Statistical Almanac, we can only hope that there will be more willing partners.

We are also aware that some stakeholders will not readily accept this Statistical Almanac and how this databank was produced. This Statistical Almanac is not, and will not claim to be, a complete databank on international migration and development. Filling up the missing data related to overseas Filipinos, such as the welfare conditions and cases of migrants in host countries, is a project that can be done in the future.

Our country’s future beside citizens’ continued overseas migration will be challenging, as the Institute previously wrote. We hope that when many people use the contents of this Migration and Development Statistical Almanac strategically, it will lead to a future that the Philippines will look forward to.

- JEREMAIAH M. OPINIANO
Executive Director
Institute for Migration and Development Issues (IMDI)

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