Nestor has been driving a taxicab since six years ago after his short stint in Taiwan as a factory worker.
He does not want to be identified because of what he underwent after returning home, Nestor said, was that what he earned in his stint abroad was lost due to scams, the last was when he tried to apply for a job in Japan.
Although his other companions reached Japan, he was among those who did not proceed after the recruiter asked them another P125,000 on top of the P25,000 that they initially gave her. “I lost about P50,000 (in the process),” he said in vernacular.
He said the money that he lost lately was supposed to be the one he’d have used to completely pay the taxicab he was driving. “But because I was drawn to a job abroad, I lost the remaining money that I earned after toiling abroad,” he said.
He said had he had an option for the small savings that he accumulated during his first trip to work abroad, he would not lost it.
The likes of Nestor, however, will now have an alternative for their savings after late last month, President Rodrigo Duterte approved the setting up of the Overseas Filipino Bank (OFB).
Under Executive Order 44, what used to be the Postbank,which is owned by the Philippine Postal Corp. and the Bureau of Treasury, would become the OFB with the Land Bank of the Philippines infusing fresh funds to run it. The likes of Nestor, however, will now have an alternative for their savings after late last month, President Rodrigo Duterte approved the setting up of the Overseas Filipino Bank (OFB). Under Executive Order 44, what used to be the Postbank,which is owned by the Philippine Postal Corp. and the Bureau of Treasury, would become the OFB with the Land Bank of the Philippines infusing fresh funds to run it.
Alex V. Buenaventura, Land Bank president who will sit as OFB board chair, said that he is planning to institute reforms in the government banking system for the banks to capture at least 25% of the remittances of OFWs.
The plan, he said, is for Land Bank to infuse P1 billion in the new bank, which will open its first foreign branch in Dubai next year, as the Postalbank was even valued below zero at negative P448 million.
In a statement, Finance Secretary Carlos Dominguez III said that the creation of the bank is very important as it will offer products that will help Filipinos working or living abroad.
Among these products, he said, are lending windows with friendly terms for them and their families as well as products that will help them grow their money.
Informed of the creation of the bank and what it can offer to OFWs, Nestor can only heave a sigh of disgust. He said that the creation of the bank would have helped him grow his money and not thought o resorting to again work abroad.
“At least, there will be fewer like me (who will succumb to unscrupulous individuals),” he said as he flashed a wry smile. With these programs, it is likely that this will be the first administration to eventually move towards creating long term success for many OFWs, eventually bringing many of them home. With John Carlo B. tria
