MIDLE EAST HITS PHILIPPINES

The Effect of The Middle East Crisis on

                Philippine Economy

                                             by: Wenefreo Melencion

 

The Middle East crisis which started in Egypt and now in Libya is giving our people so much problem. The prices of basic commodities have ballooned as expected, but the worst of them all is the plight of our overseas workers who are now jobless with nothing in their purses.

We have hundreds of thousands overseas workers scattered all over the vast deserts of the Middle East, and these modern heroes as we aptly call them are helping greatly our economic recovery through their remittances to their families over here in the Philippines. Millions of dollars sent monthly by our workers abroad made our reserves alive and kicking.

No less than our gave personal instruction to the agencies concerned not to dilly-dally its efforts in bringing back to our country our workers who have done so much for our economic recovery. This is a manifestation of our leader’s acknowledgment of the contribution that these people have tendered toward our stability.

Our affected workers who have undergone gruesome journey in getting through checkpoints of armed rebels could only nod their heads in disappointments on the unexpected tragic turn of events in their lives. The Libyan dinars in their purses could not even buy them chocolates for their loved ones as no forex counter would gamble to exchange them with U.S.dollars or with our own currency. Thanks to the Philippine Central Bank for deciding to exchange the dinars brought by the repatriated Filipinos, but to a very limited extent of only P10,000 per returnee.
Upon retrospection, we can almost conclude that the crisis in the Middle East will go like a wildfire. It started in Tunisia, crept to Egypt, and now Libya. There are rumors that Saudi Arabians will soon follow suit. If this infamous event now rampaging Libya finds its way finally to Saudi Arabia where about half a million of our countrymen are employed, I cannot imagine how our president would react to it . . .

Reaction : The Middle east crisis created economic problems in our country, mainly, the problem on oil price hike. Eventhough Libya is not the country's primary source of petroleum we are still affected of what is happening there because countries who purchased oil in Libya chose to have their source of petroleum in other oil producing countries such as Saudi Arabia, who is unfortunately Philippines primary source of petroleum. Since the supply is limited and the demand is high, oil producing countries will be forced to increased their market value of petroleum that will result to an oil price hike and an increase of the market value of goods and services. The increase of products market value affects our purchasing capacity, it will forced us cutting corners of our budgets and  end-up buying cheaper goods that does not satisfy our basic necessities.

Another problem is thousands of our overseas workers are jobless. Returning of OFW's here lessens the revenue of the country because they pay taxes to our government through their income abroad and these taxes coming from them could be a big help for improving our economic status, improving our country's facilities and physical features, and increasing salaries of the workers.

At this early, we could already feel the unfavorable manifestation of this global crisis in our daily lives such as high fare for the transportation due to oil price hikes, high priced products , and  increase of unemployment statistics .  We just hope and implore the aid of the of Almighty God up there to extend His blessed hands to calm the situation and restore peace in middle east because we are not yet ready to give up our workers abroad.