Annex 1: Counting overseas Filipinos and Remittances The national statisticalsystem's treatment of migrants and remittances has lagged behind their increasing importance to the economy. Notwithstanding a feri efforts at refinement the statistical system as a whole is not designed for an econom.v u,ith so much overseas employment, so there is wide variation in terms of definitions. co\erage. reference period and methodologies. This is aggravated by the intrinsic difficulty in counting so many migrants who are always on the move and in monitoring millions of small remittance transactions, both of which even occur across hundreds of countries. The most basic information needed is on the number of overseas Filipinos and their remittances. The most cited figure of the number or stock of overseas Filipinos comes from the Commission on Filipinos Overseas-Department of Foreign Allbirs (CFO-DFA) which comes up with estimates using data frorn its own efforts, the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA) and Overseas Worker and \\'elfare Administration (OWWA). This stock data started to be collected in 1997 and the r.nost recent 2007 data is said to come from sources covering 193 countries/territories. The CFO count of 8.7 million permanent, temporary and irregular overseas Filipinos as of end-2007 - of which 5.0 million can be considered OFWs (i.e., temporary and irregular) - is based largely on administrative records maintained as an offshoot of those agencies' functions. These records include domestic departure registration forms, citizenship documentation, population counts and residence permits (from domestic agencies and overseas diplomatic posts). However the Bureau of Labor and Employment Statistics (BLES) and National Statistics Office (NSO) also have alternative estimates based on labor force surveys and on censuses of population and housing. The Survey on Or,erseas Filipinos (SOF) for instance counted 2.0 million OFWs as of October 2008. The Family Income and Expenditure Survey (FIES) of 2003 in turn counts 1.3 million families "with main income from abroad". The discrepancy between these sources arises because different measurement schemes are used. Surveys are also specifically used to generate information about OFW characteristics and behavior that the more straightfonvard administrative records do not cover (e.g., remittance behavior, spending patterns). The most frequently cited amount of overseas Filipino remittances meanwhile comes from the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) which also integrates remittances into the country's balance of payments (BOP). The BSP figure of US$16.4 billion in 2008 is computed using direct bank reports. In the BOP, the BSP also uses other remittance estimates fiom various sources. Headcounts, salaries and remittance behavior are generated using various censuses and surveys from the CFO, POEA, OWWA and NSO. The BSP's remittance estimate in the BOP tries to capture flows through both formal and inforrnal channels, even as it concedes that its frgure may still not capture every,thing that goes though informal channels. 60