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This Hearty Group of Filipinos Is Staying Strong Worldwide Despite Virus
Outbreaks

Ralph Jennings

   TAIPEI, TAIWAN - The deadly coronavirus outbreak spreading in parts of
   the world this month threatens the Philippines because 2.3 million of
   its citizens work overseas. In bleak technical terms, they either risk
   illness to work abroad or return to the Philippines and earn less money
   than they would get overseas.

   But the people who staff hotels, stores, factories and hospitals from
   Saudi Arabia to the United States are expected to stay on board after
   taking routine health precautions. The Philippine government forecasts
   only a slight dip in their remittances this year because of the disease
   outbreak.

   "If remittances are affected, that's a big issue here," said Ramon
   Casiple, executive director of the Metro Manila-based advocacy group
   Institute for Political and Electoral Reform. But, he said, "this time
   I don't think there will be that big an impact."

   Workers have moved to 100 countries, about half the world, to boost
   incomes and send much of it back to the Philippines. Their remittances
   make up about 9% of the largely impoverished Philippine economy.

   Most do not work in places with the worst outbreaks, though a combined
   243,000 live in South Korea and Singapore where authorities are
   grappling with especially high caseloads.

   To leave their posts in a disease-hit area such as Hong Kong would put
   them at risk of quarantine once back in the Philippines, and flights
   can be hard to find anyway because about 25,000 are cancelled due to
   immigration restrictions aimed at stopping the virus spread.

   Overseas Filipino workers, often called OFWs for short, have survived
   worse upsets than the coronavirus, said Eduardo Araral, associate
   professor at the National University of Singapore's public policy
   school. About 4,000 Filipinos remain in Libya despite shelling and
   other strife since 2011, for example.

   "I don't think this virus would scare the OFWs to go home," he said.
   "In fact, those who stayed in Libya chose to stay even at the height of
   the shelling and the war."

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