The price for remittances

San Francisco Chronicle

PERSONAL PERSPECTIVE
The price for remittances
- Pati Poblete
Monday, December 26, 2005

IF THERE'S ONE THING the holiday season has taught me, it's that Catholic guilt has got nothing on that of a migrant's.

For as long as I can remember, my parents -- the first to come to America in both their families -- constantly reminded me about my poor cousins in the Philippines.

When I refused to finish my food, I was told my poor cousins would be so lucky to eat my leftovers. When I complained about my clothes, my dad lectured me about how my poor cousins had to walk the dirt roads of the provinces shirtless and shoeless.

And -- my personal favorite -- when I wanted new toys for Christmas, I was told my poor cousins had to drag around empty sardine cans by a string and imagine they were shiny cars.

I'd watch my mom fill up huge, empty boxes with cans of Spam, corned beef, Vienna sausages, chocolates, bed sheets, clothes and towels. "These are for your cousins and my brothers and sisters for the new year," she'd say. "We're lucky we're in America so we can help them."

As I grew up, I carried the guilt with me, sending $100 here and there in remittances to countless cousins who I had never met or spoken to. I

imagined the money going toward clothing those shirtless, shoeless cousins, and providing them with real toys rather than empty sardine cans.

My mom would send even more money, even when she faced financial hardships of her own. "No matter how poor we get, they are always poorer," she would say.

So when our whole family went to the Philippines in April, I was eager to meet finally the cousins and aunts and uncles who my parents had been helping for so many years. We packed extra clothes so we could give them away, and brought canned foods and candies for our other relatives.

When we arrived, my older cousin, Lani, greeted us at the airport, though she almost didn't notice us because she was busy text messaging on her cell phone. She led us to where our other relatives were waiting and proceeded to take pictures with a tiny digital camera that could have passed for a key chain.

I spent the week getting to know them and asking them questions. Uncle Edwin, my mom's youngest brother, had stopped working, I was told. With all the money he was getting in remittances from America, he didn't need to work anymore.

My mom's eldest sister, Gloria, had stopped working as well, after her daughter went overseas to Hong Kong to work as a maid. What little money her daughter sent was enough to keep her from working, she said.

Our eldest cousin, Jerry, had left for Saudi Arabia to work in a factory. His remittances were enough for each of our cousins to buy their own cell phones.

Four of my cousins had dropped out of high school. "Why finish school when the money is in America?" they asked.

I looked around at the open market space down the road from my grandmother's house and stared at the raw fish covered with flies. Vendors sold flat soft drinks in small plastic bags with makeshift straws placed in them. Yes, it was a poor country and no matter how bad it got in America, I was indeed luckier than my cousins.

But sending money so that they could stop working was not helping them, or the Philippines.

In 2001, International Monetary Fund figures showed that Filipinos working abroad sent an estimated $6 billion back home, placing them third behind migrants sending remittances to India and Mexico. Last year, that number went up to $8.8 billion.

According to a study by the International Monetary Fund, "remittances do not appear to be intended to serve as capital for economic development, but as compensation for poor economic performance."

The study also revealed that the money sent from migrants to their families is mostly spent on consumer items, such as clothes and cell phones, rather than business investments.

"But they will think we are selfish," my mom said when I urged her to send the money to an organization instead, that would build schools and homes in her hometown. "They won't see that money."

She had survivor's guilt, living in a country of prosperity while her family still lived in a developing one. But what good was the money bringing to a country whose communities were filled with unemployed and unproductive citizens because of it?

New schools, better roads, sturdier roofs, and an incentive to build their own communities, that's what my poor cousins need.

There's no shame -- or guilt -- in that.

Pati Poblete is a Chronicle editorial writer. E-mail her at ppoblete@sfchronicle.com

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