Fewer OFW families sending remittances home

Overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) may be saving the country’s economy, but many of them could not even provide for their families’ daily needs.

Overseas Workers Welfare Administration (OWWA) yesterday reported a growing number of OFWs who refused to send money to their families back home.

"We have recorded an increasing number of families of OFWs who have been seeking assistance to get their regular financial support from their relatives abroad," said Gloria Taule, of OWWA’s Workers Assistance Unit (WAU).

Taule noted that request for financial support comprised the majority of complaints being filed with the WAU.

"Of the 1,000 complaints we are getting a month, more than 50 percent involve cases of OFWs families seeking financial support," Taule said.

Taule added that many OFWs who are not sending regular monthly financial support to their families work in the Middle East.

"A majority of those who are not sending money are male OFWs and the usual reason is that they have vices or they are having an extra-marital affair," Taule disclosed.

According to Taule, the families of OFWs are seeking assistance from OWWA because the wives are usually jobless and cannot make both ends meet.

"Actually, the government should not be meddling in such cases because it is a husband and wife problem but the families of the OFWs are coming here so we have to intervene," she pointed out.

Aside from financial support, OFWs families also seek assistance for the repatriation of their relatives who are being abused by their foreign employers.