OFW Remittances: Boon or Bane? - Part II

OFWs have been billeted as the new heroes of Philippine Society.  Indeed, they should be.  The support they provide to their families back in the Philippines has been nothing short of massive.  Without this support, the Philippine economy could collapse.

OFW Remittances are at an all time high:

OFW Remittances directly make up at least 10% of the Philippine economy.  Indirectly, OFW Remittances support a much bigger swath of the Philippine economy.

As a result, the Philippine economy has been experiencing a decade of robust economic growth:

The Philippines has accomplished this by shipping at least 10% of its population abroad as foreign workers.

But the drop in Official and Unofficial Unemployment Rates has bottomed out and looks set to climb back up again.

The incidence of Poverty remains stubbornly high:

And the percentage of the population that goes hungry has gone up instead of down.

So our apparent success in pursuing OFW jobs and money has not been parlayed into a similar success in reducing unemployment, poverty, and hunger.  Perhaps it's time that the nation rethink its policies and arrive at new ways of channeling OFW jobs and money into a direct and not "trickle down" reduction of some of our nation's most intractable problems.