I. Philippine Migration Overview The numerous problems with the accuracy, coverage, quality and comparability of migration and remittance data generated by the national statistical system are still in the process ofbeing addressed. (See Annex 1: Counting overseas Filipinos and remittances) Nevertheless some general trends can be identified whose precision will irnprove as the data generated itself improves. Overview of Filipinos oYerseas The largest concentration of all overseas Filipinos is in the United States (US) and Middle East, while temporary and irregular Filipinos (i.e., OFWs) are generally more dispersed in a larger number of countries. Using data fiom 193 countries and territories, the Commission on Filipinos Overseas (CFO) estimates 8.7 million Filipinos overseas divided into 3.7 million permanent, 4.1 million temporary and 900,023 imegular Filipinos as of December 2007. Some 5.8 million or two-thirds of all Filipinos overseas are in the Americas or Middle East. They are heavily concentrated in just the top three receiving countries which together account for over half of all overseas Filipinos: the United States (US, 2.80 million or 32.lYo), Saudi Arabia (1 .07 million or 12.2o/o), and Canada (462,935 or 5.3oh). The categories "temporary" and "irregular" most closely correspond to what are conventionally considered overseas Filipino workers - i.e., OFWs with work contracts (temporary) or who are undocumented (irregular). There are 5.03 million Filipinos of temporary and irregular status abroad particularly concentrated in Saudi Arabia (1.07 million), United Arab Emirates (UAE, 528,411), US (284,753), Malaysia (218,965), Qatar (195,543), and at sea (266,553). Around 3.5 million or over two-thirds of all OFWs are in Middle East (2.18 million), East and SouthAsia (1.01 million), or sea-based (266,553). The top 10 countries with the largest numbers of temporary Filipino workers are SaudiArabia (1.07 million), UAE (493,411), Qatar (189,943), Kuwait (129,708), US (128,910), Hongkong (116,066), UK (102,381), Malaysia (90,965), Italy (82,594) and Singapore (70,616). These 10 countries account for 2.45 million or 59.3o/o of all temporary workers.