Also largely reflecting the poor prospects for work and livelihoods in the country is how there are very few cases of foreigners arrested for violations of working without permits or engaging in business without proper permits or visas. The BI records only 132 arrests in the two-and-a-half years from 2007 until mid-2009, the overwhekningly number of whom were Chinese (99 arrests) and Koreans (18). Nonetheless it is still possible that these are significantly underestimated. To some degree the country's archipelagic nature and lack of land borders with any of its neighbours in Southeast Asia acts as a natural barrier that makes illicit movements more difficult. Yet the southern part of the country is still relatively accessible to determined migrants from Indonesia and Malaysia. The waiving of entry visa requirements for ASEAN nationalities also means that alien registration figures would be unable to account for ASEAN country nationals who entered the Philippines as tourists, for instance, and then subsequently sought employment and have not been found out by the BI. The Indonesian embassy in Manila for instance estimates around 20,000-25,000 Indonesians in the country of which around'20,000 are undocumented yet have been living in Mindanao for some four decades now. It is estimated that some 85%o of these are unskilled and only 15% skilled. Even if there is already a third generation of children bonL raised, living and working in the country they still do not consider themselves Filipino. The embassy of Laos reports only around 10 of their citizens in the country rnostly students in Metro Manila. There are also an undetermined number of undocumented Malaysian nationals also in Mindanao. This is the only information available from attempted interviews with ASEAN country embassies in Manila. II. Migration and Development Migration and remittances have become very significant for many economies and been hailed as offering new opportunities for economic development. Migration is certainly a right for people in their pursuit of decent work and livelihoods for themselves and their families. In particular much attention has been given to how remittances increase incomes of receiving households and how they are an increasingly large part of financial flows to developing countries. The benefits of migration and remittances to households and to economies as a whole are widely presumed - however their real contribution to real domestic development is much more qualified if they are assessed in their broader social, economic and political context. Indeed there is reason to be sceptical of any economic policy thrust that overly relies on these as a primary means to advance economic development. t3