Memorandum submitted by Unlad Kabayan
The responses below are preliminary and based
on unpublished social and academic research of Filipino migrants
communities in Klang Valley, Malaysia (1994) by the Asian Migrant
Centre, a regional NGO based in Hong Kong and community studies
in ten barangays[125]in
the Philippines, 4 in Davao City-1998, 2 in Bohol-2000, and 4
in Iligan City-2001, by Unlad-Kabayan seeking to determine migrant
savings capability and how migrant disposable income is spent.
Experiences of the Asian Migrant Centre and Unlad-Kabayan in mobilizing
migrant savings and investments for building community based enterprises
owned and managed by migrant workers and their families, since
1994 to the present have also been used. Other references include
a research commissioned by the International Labor Office, Gender
Promotions Program in Geneva by this writer and an ongoing research
of Unlad-Kabayan on "Impact of Labor Migration to Gender
Roles, Women and Health".
A PERSPECTIVE ON
MIGRATION AND
DEVELOPMENT
Migration, whether internal or international,
is a response to poverty and lack of jobs in rural and urban communities
in the Philippines. It is heightened by the active promotion of
labor trade by the government and by labor placement or recruitment
agencies often in consort, which have discovered migrant remittances
a huge economic bonus. Externally, changes in the structure of
the labor market in various countries have made migrant labor
a more attractive alternative solution to labor shortages. Labor
demand and supply rules the trade in labor and will do so for
the foreseeable future.
Migration becomes a factor in development because
of the sheer volume of migrant remittances, which often comes
in the order of US$ 6-8 billion annually that come into formal
banking channels and which represents 8.9% of the GDP in 2001.
About the same amount is remitted in informal channels.[126]
Migrant remittances also represented 298% of foreign direct investments
in 2002.
Migration becomes a factor in development because
of its capability to raise family incomes, to meet basic needs
of families and in its capability to generate jobs once migrant
remittances are systematically directed towards the creation of
enterprises.
1. AID, DEVELOPMENT
STRATEGIES AND
MIGRATION MANAGEMENT
How might the use of aid to promote local development
and improve governance impact upon migration flows? How might
the use of aid to prevent conflict and to provide humanitarian
relief impact upon migration flows? Can and should aid be used
to reduce migration flows?
In our research in three migrant communities
in Davao City, 82% of a total of 123 respondents representing
families with one Overseas Filipino Worker considered economic
reasons as primary in their decision to work overseas. 69% of
respondents were earning no incomes or incomes below US$ 177 per
month.
The same findings are affirmed in the Iligan
City study. In the research on Filipino migrant workers in Klang
Valley in Malaysia 89% of respondents considered lack of jobs
as the cause of their migration. In a baseline study of foreign
domestic helpers in Hong Kong in 1994, majority 85% of respondents
considered lack of jobs as the primary reason for their migration.
86% of respondents said they would not work overseas if they could
receive the same salaries in their home countries as they were
receiving in Hong Kong. Interviews with women migrants in the
ILO study also affirmed this.[127]
Therefore the creation of jobs in the home countries
and higher incomes would be a deterrent for migrants to work overseas.
Foreign aid along with migrant savings can definitely promote
local development and which deters out migration. It may promote
in- migration though.
Since our research does not show that social
conflict is in any way a major factor in overseas migration, then
foreign aid to prevent conflict cannot be a factor in impacting
overseas migration. Internal migration from rural to urban setting
is definitely a factor in Mindanao. And no foreign aid will help
in preventing people from fleeing their homes and farms once ethnic
or religious-based conflicts erupt. Poor governance, inefficiency
and corruption are not independent factors in migration. But they
can be a factor in so far as it causes poverty among people in
specific places.
What impact does South-South migration have on
developing countries which host large numbers of migrants, and
how can donors help such countries to deal with these impacts?
Labor trade between South countries such as
between Singapore and Malaysia, between Malaysia and Indonesia,
between Singapore and the Philippines, between Thailand and Burma
and between Bangladesh and Malaysia is growing. Singapore's labor
force is comprised of 29.2% migrant workers[128]Malaysia
labor force is comprised of 19.7% migrant workers[129]South
Korea hosts 311,544 migrant workers representing 1.4% of the labor
force[130]Taiwan
hosts 326,515 migrant workers representing 3.3% of the labor force.
Migrant workers are a viable alternative to the relocation of
medium and small enterprises overseas, because they are trainable
and cheap. Host countries do not need to pay them any significant
benefits.
Host countries can be assisted by donor aid
by providing education, social security, health and other benefits
and other services to migrant workers that the host countries
do not provide.
What developing countries do to make migration
and development a win-win game? How can migration be integrated
in countries' Poverty Reduction Strategies, and in donor's Country
Assistance Strategies?
Developing countries can make migration a win-win
game by incorporating migrant workers families and migrant remittances
in the development plans of local communities. The involvement
of local government units in migrant worker entrepreneurial initiatives
are enabling new enterprises to rise, raising local peoples incomes,
creating jobs, reducing poverty and increasing the attractiveness
of reintegration of migrant workers to their local communities.
Donor's Country Assistance Strategies should give this a priority
in policy and program as well as allocation of resources. A deliberate
policy and appropriate strategies for harnessing migrant remittances
and non-cash resources for development should be adopted by migrant
sending and receiving countries and by donor countries. Innovative
approaches and initiatives by NGOs and other civil society groups
along this line should be supported.
Many donor agencies have turned down requests
for support to our work because "migrants were not the poorest
of the poor but were the lucky ones who were able to escape from
poverty situation." Migration and migrant workers do not
feature in their priority list, even now.
Albeit, a small initiative, Unlad-Kabayan, since
1996, was able to mobilize P10 million (US$200,000) migrant savings,
which in turn was used to build a little more than 500 micro and
small enterprises that generated more than 1,200 jobs for returning
migrants and for the unemployed and poor in the communities, majority
(65%) of whom were women. A few examples may help illustrate:
(a) Migrants (domestic workers) in Hong Kong
pooled their savings together, bought 5.5 hectares of land and
established a free-range poultry farm, hog fattening and flower
and vegetable farms, in the first instance. Total investments
amounted to P2.3 million (US$46,000). It employs seven full-time
workers whose families live in the farm, and 34 seasonal workers.
The enterprise will soon implement its social program, poultry
and hog dispersal to 30 families in the nearby community as supplemental
income source for them. Additionally, it will train the community
on entrepreneurship and in organic production systems.
(b) A migrant savings group (factory workers)
in Taiwan won the bid for rice mill that had been foreclosed by
the Land Bank of the Philippines for P900,000 (U$18,000). A member
of the group has since returned to manage the business while the
rest of the group remained in Taiwan and continued to save to
pay for the total rehabilitation of the mill and for additional
capital.
(c) A seafarer's savings was used to start
a small noodles factory in Davao City in 2000. Initial capital
was P215,000 (US$4,300) that employed five workers. After 2.5
years, capital increased to P580,000 (US$11,600) and employed
13 full-time workers.
In 2002, the Overseas Workers Welfare Administration
(OWWA) in partnership with NGOs adopted savings mobilization and
enterprise development as twin strategies for its comprehensive
re-integration program for OFWs.
What scope is there for international cooperation
to manage migration and the migration-development interface at
internal and international levels? How does, and should, the international
community address migration and development issues?
The training of international workers from the
south countries is providing North countries with cheap but skilled
workers at no expense to them. This is highly immoral and a new
form of imperialism. International cooperation may be established
to share responsibility in the training of internationally-destined
workers. In the host countries, education-training programs for
migrants may be developed and resources allocated by host governments.
These programs should be relevant, sustainable, people-centred
process and lead to their empowerment.
2. REMITTANCES
What is the scale of remittances, as regards internal,
regional and international migration?
In 2001, the Philippines was the fifth highest
receiving country of international remittance flows and the highest
in Southeast Asia. The Bohol study showed that in two barangays,
total remittances received by families in a ten year period amounted
to P20 million (US$400,000). In these barangays, the immediate
evidence of remittance was the bigger than usual houses made of
concrete. Davao City study revealed that families without a migrant
worker had an average income range of P2,501-7,500 (US$52-156)
while those with migrant worker had P15,000-25,000 (US$313-520)
average monthly incomes.
Who receives remittances and what are they spent
on?
Migrants' families are the primary recipients
of remittances and spent mainly on food and education. According
to percentage share, the Davao study showed the following expense
pattern: food -54% of monthly expenses; education—12%; clothing—8%
and transportation expense—7%. The rest was used to pay
debts and a minimal amount was saved. 31% spent their savings
to build or repair houses. In the Iligan study, food was given
the highest priority, followed by clothing, housing, and education.
Support to other relatives and insurance were both in the lowest
priority.
What is the impact of remittances on development
and poverty reduction?
Based on the expense patterns, overseas migration
can be considered a survival strategy. It enables migrant families
to eat regular meals, educate children-siblings (who end up in
many cases as migrants upon graduation) and build their own houses.
And in more recent years, the continued stay of migrants overseas
has increased the buying capacity of their families at home, which
is a major factor in the expansion of the services sector fueling
a consumption-led "growth". The primary and secondary
sectors of agriculture and manufacturing have weakened.
It can be said that the impact of remittances
on development and poverty reduction had been to families of migrant
workers and are not seen to be sustainable and enduring.
What can be done and by whom to maximize the development
benefits of remittances?
Studies showed that migrant workers were able
to save 7% of their income (Klang Valley research). In recognition
of the income of migrant workers, the Philippine government has
enacted laws for mandatory remittance, such as EO 857, but was
later rescinded for land-based workers. Concentrating remittances
enables the government to earn revenues which can then be used
for investment or for any other purpose.
It is true that remittances have kept the country's
economy afloat. However, its impact on development is minimal
as it largely unorganized and immediately dispersed to individual
families. There had also been study by the Department of Foreign
Affairs on ways to capture migrant savings through small US$100
bonds. Results had not been brilliant. The government has also
encouraged through the OWWA various schemes encouraging migrant
workers to invest in real estate plans, education plans for children
and other pre-need plans.
Sending and host governments can encourage migrants
to develop the values and practice of saving and investing. Through
education programs and by putting forward concrete mechanisms-options
for savings and investing, and creating an enabling economic environment
so that migrants are encouraged to save and invest.
How can the transactions costs of remittances
be minimized? How can remittances be used to leverage additional
development funds?
Remittances were sent by migrant workers through
formal banking channels. In our research, we have found that 56%
of respondents remit their incomes through banks. About 17% of
respondents use the services of companies that do "door to
door" deliveries. Leakage-losses occur mostly in remitting
through friends who hand carry amounts to the migrant worker relatives.
More and more banks are offering various incentives
or inducements to encourage migrants to remit their funds through
them. Electronic banking is attractive as it enables migrant family
members to receive remittances from their migrant worker relative
overseas instantaneously. Other banks offer higher interest income
for deposits or remittances. Others still provide various services
to migrant workers that induce the migrant to deposit in them.
Government through its financial institutions
can develop attractive package for their remittance and savings
services, eg an insurance package, safe and efficient delivery
to more remote areas, which by the way are being offered by a
private development bank. Migrants can also be encouraged to save
by increasing value added services.
It may be more productive and enduring for savings-investments
of migrant workers to leverage development funds. For every peso
invested, government and development funds from donor countries
can make a match. The mechanisms may be developed as appropriate,
as in our case as NGO. Our NGO spends much to ensure the viability
and sustainability of migrants enterprises that we assist, through
incubating the business and providing enterprise development services,
eg skills training, conduct feasibility study and business plans,
assisting in access of technology and techno transfer, provision
of technical services and supplemental capital (through loans),
etc.
3. LABOR MARKETS
Is the export of skilled, and/or unskilled labor
a sustainable development strategy?
The export of skilled or unskilled labor as
a strategic response to chronic high rates of local unemployment
and chronic low wages in the local area is not a sustainable development
strategy. It does not directly address the causes of unemployment
or low wages. It justifies the misappropriation of public funds
for non-productive uses and shoves the responsibility for public
investments on migrant workers.
The preparation of migrant workers for skills
which are marketable overseas, such as English communication skills,
costs the government millions of pesos. Education and training
of migrant workers begins early—in the elementary and high
schools which are universally subsidized by the government.
Moreover, responding to the demands of the international
labor market opens the developing economy to more foreign factors
of which it has no control. For example, while the Philippines
is a large exporter of nurses and other medical professionals,
it lacks the same human resource for its own hospitals and health
care institutions. Nurses simply prefer to work overseas because
wages abroad are incomparable with local wages abroad.
Because of the lucrative foreign market for
nurses, even Philippine engineers and medical doctors are retraining
to become nurses with great loss to Philippines industries.
The sudden rise of demand for overseas nursing
and health care workers is also ruining many educational institutions.
While the quality of nurses they produce are world class they
cannot charge world class tuition fees on them without endangering
the viability of their operations. To do so would be to price
themselves out of the domestic market.
Moreover, experienced and competent teaching
staff for schools for nurses training is rapidly being depleted
which is a major factor in the deterioration of quality of education
and services of nurses and the health sector in the country.
What can be done and by whom to ensure that the
recruitment of skilled and unskilled labor from developing countries
does not undermine development?
The educational system must not look after the
needs of the foreign market primarily. It must look after the
human resource needs of society, particularly, the need for industrialists,
entrepreneurs and job generators which will employ a growing unemployed
labor force. Foreign employers of overseas Filipino workers may
be quite happy with the level of skills of their foreign workers,
but they could not care less if the sending country runs shortages
of nurses and doctors.
What are the potential development gains from
greater, possibly temporary, mobility of lower-skilled workers?
What are the prospects for enhancing labor mobility under GATS
Mode 4?
What is the developmental impact of the recruitment
of skilled labor from developing countries? Brain-drain, brain-circulation
or brain-gain?
There is certainly all of the above. Host countries
certainly benefit from brain-circulation without much investment.
In sending countries brain-drain is strongly recognized and there
is increasing awareness, if not frustration and anger, among those
affected sectors, however, the potential for brain-gain for sending
countries had not been realized. Barring a few NGOs and migrants
associations, there has been no attempt to study and deliberate
plan to make brain-drain transform to brain-gain for sending countries.
Are recruitment agencies adequately regulated?
Should developed countries compensate developing countries for
the training of nurses, teachers and others?
Developed countries importing nurses, teachers
and other workers should compensate the sending countries for
the trainings costs and the losses incurred as a result of the
drain.
An article "Where have all the principals
gone?" said that half of the country's public elementary
and high schools are without principals." Like teachers,
principals have opted to give up their position in exchange for
higher salaries abroad." It would cost the government P3.2
billion to fill some 20,363 vacant posts for school principals.[131]
This is tremendous drain in resources for a poor country like
the Philippines.
How do attempts to manage migration relate to
the emergence of illegal immigration, trafficking and smuggling?
4. THE RETURN
OF SKILLED
MIGRANTS
What the developmental impacts of return migration?
Do return migrants provide skills and capital for poverty reduction
and development or are migrants' poverty-reducing capacities greater
when they do not return?
There is no study specific on the skills and
capital contribution of migrants for poverty reduction and development
but some specific cases where returned migrants were able to use
skills learned overseas and capital to start income generating
activities. On the whole, though, at the moment, the country would
be unable to cope with return of large numbers of migrants, as
in the case of deportation from Sabah, the Gulf War in the 90's
and the large number of repatriations as a result of the Asian
financial crisis.
On the other hand, the potential of long-term
migrants and immigrants to poverty alleviation and development
is tremendous. Efforts, however, to help are mainly unorganized,
individual or by small groups and are sporadic. The motivation
is more philanthropic than developmental. In the case of US based
Filipinos, the most common efforts is through sporadic and scattered
medical missions, contribution to hometown civic projects such
as repair of churches, basketball courts, welcome arches, and
the like.
It is only this year that an organized effort
to mobilize overseas associations (of Bohol) to invest in development
oriented enterprises in the province. Investment proposals were
submitted and mechanisms for investing are being hammered out.
What can/should be done and by whom to facilitate
voluntary return migration and to maximize the developmental benefits
of return migration?
In our studies, migrants cited three major reasons
for returning voluntarily:
(a) contract termination and no prospect
of getting another job; and
(b) family problem, eg sickness, family break-up,
especially among women migrants. News they receive that their
children are being neglected or are being threatened, cause immediate
return of migrant workers. News of extramarital affairs of their
spouses at home or of serious health problems is another cause
for return.
The presence of substantial savings and/or a
job at home facilitates the voluntary return of migrant workers.
In the experience of Unlad-Kabayan, there were at least 50 migrant
workers who have returned for various reasons but their decision
to come home became easier because of a job they themselves in
a business they have helped to establish.
Return migration after a few months or a year
is the main phenomenon. Except for two, return migration was not
evident in the 50 mentioned above.
Sending government, like the Philippines, recognize
its responsibility for return migration but it has also admitted
that there is no deliberate plan for this. Host governments may
be a crucial factor for voluntary return by providing education
and training, providing incentives—financial, technology,
etc.
5. MOBILIZING
DIASPORAS AND
TRANSNATIONAL NETWORKS
FOR DEVELOPMENT
How can the skills and resources of diasporas
be harnessed for economic and political development? How can migrants'
networks influence development in home countries?
It may be useful to look at the recent initiative
in the Netherlands where migrants associations were invited to
submit entries for "bright ideas of migrant associations
for development cooperation". Our partner in the Netherlands,
PASALI, took second prize for their proposed project entitled
"From brain-drain to brain-gain" to be carried out in
the Philippines.
What role can Migrants' Associations play in development?
How can UK policy encourage Migrants' Associations to play an
active role in development?
The UK government can develop programs to encourage
migrants to organize themselves and support initiatives by government,
NGOs in organizing migrants associations in your country. Development
education and development cooperation addressing migrants and
migration can be a central theme in these programs. These can
be done within the UK and in countries where significant migrant
populations are present.
6. MIGRANTS'
RIGHTS, ASYLUM
AND REFUGEE
PROTECTION
What rights do migrants have? How does the legal
status of migrants impact upon the developmental consequences
of migration? How does refugee protection relate to migrants'
rights?
Recognition of migrants with legal status can
move the migration and development interface faster. With legal
status, migrants can have freedom to exercise their rights and
contribute in a more meaningful way to development. Migrant workers
whose status is reduced to "industrial trainee" do not
receive the just compensation and benefits for the same work that
a regular worker receives. Undocumented migrants, on the other
hand, are unable to exercise their rights and access to basic
services, eg right to association, communicate with their families,
to access safe and efficient remittance services, and such other
rights as provided for in the 1990 UN Convention on the Rights
of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families.
How consistent—in both a national international
context—are donor governments' approaches to migration with
their policies on development cooperation, humanitarian assistance
and refugee protection?
Donor governments, to my knowledge and in experience,
had been reluctant to make a deliberate link between migrant and
development (or underdevelopment). This was evident in various
UN sponsored international conferences, eg ICPD, WSSD, FCWC. While
there is recognition of the need for a sustainable economic environment
in the home countries as a deterrent to migration, the cause and
effect of migration and development was not a welcome discourse.
It was only recently, in the last two years, I would say, that
this link is becoming more and more of interest.
Moreover, in a number of international meetings,
trafficking and refugees had taken a more center stage than migration.
Control was more the key-operative work in the discussions on
migration rather than development.
Among donor agencies, the emphasis was more
on addressing poverty and underdevelopment by addressing the issues
of the "poorest of the poor" only. It is also possible
for other sectors, such as the migrant workers, to participate
in the task of development and for them to become "engines"
for economic growth.
No major country of destination has ratified
or signed the 1990 UN Convention on the Rights of All Migrant
Workers and Members of their Families, including the United Kingdom.
October 2003
125 A barabgay is the basic political-geographic unit
in the Philippines. Back
126
As quoted by "Migrant Remittance to Developing Countries"
from IMF Balance of Payments Yearbook. Back
127
Villaba, Maria Angela, Protecting Filipino Migrant Women in Vulnerable
Jobs, a research commissioned by the International Labor Office,
Gender Promotions Programme, Geneva, 1999. Back
128
Asian Migrant Yearbook, 2001, Asian Migrant Centre, Hong Kong,
p133. Back
129
Ibid. Back
130
South Korea, Ministry of Justice, figures as of January 2001. Back
131
Aureus, Mia Coruzon, Where have all the school principals gone?
Institute on Church and Social Issues, published in Philippine
Daily Inquirer, 9 October 2003. Back
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