Workers rebuild hometown w/ remittances

Workers rebuild hometown w/ remittances

By OFW GUARDIAN
Saturday, 08 January 2005

Alcala, Pangasinan: This fourth-class municipality with 35,734 residents and 7,181 households is a typical Filipino rural area buoyed by remittances of former residents who work or permanently reside abroad. The concrete, two-to-three storey houses owned by families of overseas workers here are evidence of the new prosperity brought about by their absentee relatives.

The migration culture is strong in towns like Alcala, where transnational ties between town mates here and abroad have been utilized to channel remittances productively and establish collaborative development projects for hometowns.

The Alcala Overseas Workers Association (AOWA), a group of domestic workers in Hong Kong, was able to renovate the town auditorium, finance various town fiesta celebrations, make donations to public schools, support medical missions for residents of Alcala, and provide scholarship grants.

In the website www.pangasinan.org, there is a link to the town of Alcala, and a project called “Barangay San Vicente Elementary School Backpack Project” initiated by US-based Alcalanian, Mario Viernes Respicio. This project aims to provide 150 backpacks filled with school supplies (worth US$5 per backpack) to Grade 1 and 2 students of San Vicente Elementary School.

Donations to the backpack project, as of September 20, had reached US$150. But there are pledges, such as 50 backpacks (worth US$250) from Jorge Cuaresma of Hercules, California. The San Vicente Elementary Backpack Project is one of 11 backpack projects moderated by the website.

”It help this town has received through the support of Alcalanians who work abroad in immeasurable,” said resident Monica Callanta. Circulo Candabeno Candaba in Pampanga, a second-class municipality, is another example. For eight years, members of the Circulo Candabeño living overseas and in Manila have been able to provide scholarship funds to poor but deserving local students.

Town mayor Jerry Pelayo, who founded the organization when he was based in the United States, said Circulo Candabe?o not only organizes town mates, but encourages members “to be involved and participate in the development of Candaba”.

As of 2002, around 200 students from Candaba had graduated from basic computer skills and cosmetology courses given by Technical Education and Skills Development Authority (TESDA). These same students, with assistance from Circulo, got jobs at the Clark Economic Development Zone, and in Saudi Arabia.

Pelayo said the products of Circulo’s scholarship program are expected to be the ?successor generation? of Circulo Candabeño to ensure that the spirit of giving back to the hometown is sustained. Pelayo, a first term town mayor, plans to organize Candaba professionals abroad and assign them to town projects so that their skills are utilized (such as an engineer who can be tapped for the local government’s infrastructure projects). Another target of this long-term project, Pelayo says, is to set up livelihood projects related to agriculture, food processing, computer education and cosmetology. Circulo currently has 140 members, according to its president Adriano Marcelo.

Some 80 members reside in California, New York, West Virginia, Washington, and Illinois. The remaining members are based in Metro Manila.

Pelayo refused to give sat how much the donations from the Circulo members are worth, because, he said, the project’s aim is to help develop Candaba and not flaunt its accomplishments. “While the donations have great value and importance, it is their involvement and participation as members of the community that fulfill the primary object of Circulo.”

Talisay Association USA In Talisay, Batangas, the parish of San Guillermo was the lucky beneficiary of US$12,000 from the Talisay Association USA (TALUSA) for the renovation of the parish church. Parish priest Reynaldo Evangelista personally visited Talisaynons at their homes in New York to appeal for their support.

Now blessed with a new altar and, soon, a completed sacristy, Evangelista said the Talisaynons abroad have inspired him ?to be dedicated in my ministry as pastor of San Guillermo?.

TALUSA was formally organized in 1994, says current president Joven Mercado, after organizing picnics for Talisaynons since 1987. Its first project, granting college scholarships, has benefited eight college scholars: four of whom have graduated.

Talisay’s congresswoman, Vicky Reyes, could only be grateful to TALUSA: “It is heart-warming to know that although you have found new lives in the US, you are still ‘making a meaningful difference’ in improving the welfare of Talisaynons in the Philippines.”

Florentino Mendoza, a former president of TALUSA said the organization has been registered as a nonprofit organization with the New York Department of State. By registering as a nonprofit organization, Mendoza said TALUSA will can solicit funds from major US foundations, and do strategic fundraising activities.

Filipino migrants in the US, Canada, Hong Kong, and Saudi Arabia, tend to organize themselves into hometown associations (HTAs) whose members come from the same town, province or region. Out of the 97 organizations registered at the Philippine Consulate in Hong Kong, has 70 are town, provincial and regional groups.

Potential for development Experts have seen the potential of these migrant associations and their remittances to funnel funds and manage development projects for home communities. A recent study by the Asian Development Bank (ADB), Enhancing the Efficiency of Overseas Workers? Remittances, identified the contribution of these HTAs in leveraging remittances to development programs in migrants’ country of origin.

”Development agencies should then organize programs (that aim to) support the initiatives of Filipino Associations Overseas,” said ADB study consultant Idelfonso Bagasao at a symposium on alternative remittance systems (ARS) organized by the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) in Tokyo last June.

Filipino migrants, through formal channels such as banks, have sent US$7.6 billion in remittances to their families in the Philippines. But on top of the US$7.6 billion are other remittances sent as donations by migrants. The 2003 data from the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas? (BSP) balance of payments reported such donations worth US$218 million.

For Circulo Candabeños? Jerry Pelayo, the philanthropy of the group is tied not only to their desire to help their hometown, but to the migrants? expected retirement after their stay overseas. The local government, in fact, is preparing a grand homecoming for Candabeños returning from abroad.

Said Pelayo: “No matter how long they have stayed abroad, they will go back to Candaba. Naturally, when they go back here, they want to see a well-developed hometown that they can be proud of.” OFWJC.

Last Updated ( Tuesday, 18 January 2005 )