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According to the Philippine Central Bank remittances by Overseas Filipino Workers (OFWs), reached an all time high in 2004. A total of 8.5 billion dollars were sent home to the Philippines from cities and towns around the globe. From the Americas, the EU, the Middle East, and Asia, OFWs remitted their hard-earned cash, and in the process kept the country's economy afloat. This loyal army of overseas benefactors, forced by cruel circumstance to leave their towns and barrios and travel to the far reaches of our planet just to earn a living wage and feed their family, has once again delivered--as expected.
OFWs continue to do the "heavy-lifting" while Philippine public officials through corruption, ineptness, and greed, miss one opportunity after another to do right for their country. Since the Marcos dictatorship, the Philippines has gone from a position of preeminence in Southeast Asia to the laggard nation it is, always at the ready for a handout from its richer neighbors and former benefactor the United States.
As the past decades have shown, the Philippines is unable to change solely from within. It needs the help of its expatriates to nudge it along. As a website portal frequented by Filipinos living abroad, Philippine NewsLink continues to advocate, as it has in the past, for a more proactive stance by expatriate Filipinos in the governance of their country. Hand-in-hand with our brothers and sisters back home we will turn things around. Published 2004
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