Migrante Tags Arroyo’s OFW Hedge Funds ‘Parasitic’

Parasitic! This is what Migrante Middle East described the hedge funds supposedly to shield Overseas Filipino Workers from the declining value of the peso against the US dollar that Mrs. Gloria Macapagal Arroyo launched in Dubai.

Supposedly to shield overseas Filipino workers from the falling peso exchange against the US dollar due to its stronger value, Migrante-UAE Secretary General Nhel Morona thrashed the hedge funds saying, “It is parasitic and discriminatory.”

“This hedging fund that they launched only shows the Philippine administration is not aware of our real situation. Most of us are receiving an average of $500 salary per month. This hedge fund is for a minimum of $10,000 to avail of their favorable exchange rate. No matter how we work 24 hours a day, we can never get the lowest ceiling in three months,” Morona added.

Cyrine Pinpin, Migrante-UAE Chairperson on her part said, “Gloria is only here to taste the luxuries and richness of the beauty of the Emirates. She is not here to help us from our sufferings brought about by the lowering peso value of our salaries.”

Migrante said the hedge funds are obviously targeted for businessmen and remittance firms in guise of benefiting the OFS.

“It could have been better if Gloria has not launched this hedging program in Dubai and save the half a million peso-hotel per day accommodation at Burj Al-Arab for the education of our poor children and hospital services for our sick and dying population,” Pinpin added.

The statement cited Ibon Foundation study that the strengthening peso has resulted in a sharp cut in overseas Filipino workers’ (OFWs) incomes, costing them over P700 per $100 remitted.

According to the research institution, from January to December 2007, the exchange rate of the peso to the dollar has strengthened by almost fifteen percent. This means that over the period, the family of an OFW who remitted $100 in January was able to exchange it for P4,891. By December this had fallen to P4,174 or a decline of P717.

Such a reduction is especially painful given the increasing prices of basic goods and services in the country. For example, from January to November 2007 the cost of an 11-kg liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) cylinder increased by P76.94 to almost P600. Manila Water also recently implemented a rate hike that will cost consumers who consume 30 cubic meters per month an additional P60 on their bills.

“Overseas workers were forced to tighten their belts and remit more of their income to make up for the lost value,” said IBON research head Sonny Africa. Remittances from January to October grew by 16% compared to the same period in 2006.

According to DBP President & CEO Reynaldo G. David on the Hedging Program, DBP will specify the rates of buying and selling dollars on a specified date.

Migrante Middle East Regional Coordinator, John Monterona said, “We must be cautious that DBP can play the rates of buying and selling dollars in cahoots with manning agencies and we are certain that the authorized manning agencies will not buy dollars higher than what is prevailing in forex; after all, this is business. Manning agencies are there to gain more money and not to lose.”

Monterona added, “The hedge fund program would for sure benefit only the fund managers as well as the manning agencies and favored OFW organizations that could be legitimized money launderers. At the final analysis, this hedge fund is only to make sure that a dollar-reserve keeps pouring into the Philippine economy from OFWs while the global economy batters for US economic recession”.

“We say, thanks but no thanks to the newly sucking-money-scheme hedging program which we are certain will only extract money from our hard earnings. When it comes to money matters, we can’t anymore entrust our earnings to the most corrupt government ever the Philippines had in connivance with manning agencies run by big businessmen,” Monterona ended.

Migrante lamented that instead of launching a program that would help OFWs and their families from their weakening economic power such as working to bring down the cost of living in the Philippines , the president launch a palliative measure while staying in a very expensive hotel.

“Hundred of youth could have been saved from committing possible suicides or death due to poverty like the one that occurred in Davao City recently should the president have a culture of being thrifty,” said Richard Bautista, Chairperson of Kapatiran sa Gitnang Silangan-Migrante Riyadh.

Migrante called for the lowering of prices of basic commodities in the Philippines, state subsidized college education, and scrapping of the 12-percent value-added tax to alleviate their rising cost of living due to the falling foreign exchange rates.

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