'Remittance plot to hurt OFW kin'

ECONOMISTS and government officials alike warned Wednesday against a campaign to get overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) to stop sending money home for a week to protest the arrest and extradition of former president Rodrigo Duterte, saying this would just hurt their families. In a Facebook post, IBON Foundation Executive Director Sonny Africa said Duterte supporters who withhold remittances for a week are only hurting their own families. Africa pointed out that remittances in the first week of March reached $618 million. "Assuming 71 percent of this interrupted — taking off from how 71 percent of overseas Filipinos voted Duterte in 2016 (much more than the 39 percent Duterte got of total vote) — at most $439 million [of remittances] might stop," Africa wrote. He also pointed out that unsent remittances will still be sent later on, and that $100 billion in international reserves can smoothen out any of the effects of a zero remittances week in a few days. "BSP (Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas) has $107 [billion] in net international reserves as of end-February 2025," he said. "Remittances [will] really just [be] stopped for a moment, if even that, and will eventually be sent anyway bumping up remittances afterward," Africa added. The economist also said the "powerful message" is all just hot air. "It's a 'powerful message' only because it's catchy enough to get noticed — much like the Duterte brand which is all bluster and optics but, at its core, empty and devoid of anything meaningful or positive ... And like the Duterte brand, if ignored it has no meaning at all," Africa said. Bank of the Philippine Islands senior economist Emilio Neri, meanwhile, said such a campaign could hurt the economy but was doubtful that it would take off. "Can they afford not to send their relatives [money]? If so, then that will clearly widen the current account position, negative position and have some negative consequences on the exchange [rate], on the reserves accumulation plan of the government and it may actually even affect interest rates," Neri said. "Even growth can be dragged since it's a major funder of household final consumption, and the impact could be we could breach the P60 level immediately, or BSP might have to postpone any cuts at all this year, maybe even have to hike [interest rates] later on this year if we hit the P61, P62 level," he added. BPI lead strategist Marco Javier said it would be difficult to tell overseas workers to stop sending money to their families. "Trying to convince people, especially those that have amortizations for their housing loan, their car loan, and of course, also the tuition for their kids to stop [sending money] might be a bit hard to [do]," Javier said. "Again, their credit standing might be put at risk," he added. He then argued that most remittances come from the United States and the Middle East, so it remains to be seen if those workers will actually stop sending money. "So we will see if they're able to convince that side of the fence to stop. But it would also probably also increase the need for more dollar borrowings if this will last for more than a week or a month," Javier said. With external debt already over $130 billion, he said that issuing more peso- or dollar-denominated debt could put further pressure on interest rates. Malacañang urged OFWs, particularly the supporters of Duterte, to remain calm.