International Migrants Day: For Filipino Church, emigration destroys families

ICC Note:

Separation from wives and husbands working abroad deprives children of education and work. More than 10,000,000 Filipinos live overseas. So far this year, they have sent home US$ 14.3 billion.

by Santosh Digal

12/18/09 Philippines (AsiaNews) – “Remittances by our migrants keep the economy afloat, but more emigration destroys society,” said Fr Joaquin F. Valdes, OP of the Catholic University of Santo Tomas, Manila. For him, the lack of values and separation of husbands and wives tend to break up marriages and have devastating effects on new generations, who without a family tend to emigrate on their own without a proper education and preparation for work.

The Philippines is the Asian country with the highest proportion of citizens living abroad, 10,000,000 in all, or about 9 per cent of the total, spread in about 190 countries, 70 per cent women.

Unemployment is the main cause for this exodus, a problem that is growing. In 2009 alone, about 2.72 million Filipinos lost their job at home.

Experts note that about 2,000 Filipinos leave the country every day, mostly young people with little education or working experience. In a few years, this will mean that overseas Filipino will constitute about 11.7 per cent of the population.

The Church has been actively involved in helping Filipino migrants since 1955 through the Episcopal Commission for the Pastoral Care of Migrants and Itinerant People (ECMI), which provides assistance to those in need.

The Scalabrini Migration Center (SMC) in Manila is an example of what the Church is doing. It offers programs to educate and train young people who emigrate and missionary priests who go abroad to minister to Filipinos. Another example is the Child and Migrant Parents in South East Asia Programme, which provides spiritual support to children and parents of migrants.

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