The Philippines' s biggest export is our mother, father, sister, brother, auntie, uncle, lolo and lola. In short, Pinoys and Pinays. We produce them and bundle them and export them by the millions (including my mother-in-law who is in Dubai) and earn from their sweat and blood the needed billions of dollars that have helped significantly in keeping the economy afloat.

My wife's mother joined the Diaspora in the late '70s when the peso dollar exchange rate started to swing uncontrollably. Jobs here became scarce and the pay scale so unreasonable that it became more lucrative to work as an amah in Hong Kong than as a teacher in our country. Through the years, they have grown in strength to the point that their collective number abroad could equal the population of Singapore, Hong Kong and Brunei combined. My boss used to say when I was in Makati that there is not a single Filipino without a relative abroad. And that one can find them anywhere -- from the deserts of the Middle East to the peaks of the Alps.

The massive revenue they earn and send home cumulatively easily reach US$10 billion annually, rivaling in any given year the total revenues of the 188 or so listed companies in the Philippine Stock Exchange put together. If these Filipinos were to stop sending their money to the Philippines for a year, there is no determining how low the peso could devalue (P100 to a dollar maybe or probably lower). This could cause the inevitable collapse of the Philippine economy.

But this economic power is only indirectly felt.

Economists call their remittances "invisible receipts" because these cannot be directly measured and the amounts come in trickles. Each, on the average, sends only a thousand dollars annually, which amounts to loose change in the pockets of the tai-pans. A significant portion of these remittances are brought home through other balikbayans or inserted surreptitiously in letters and packages because it is cheaper that way. Such practices are due to the fact that only a very few of them occupy high salaried positions in their host countries. The combination of these factors, plus their widespread distribution, have prevented them from getting the commensurate leverage they deserved economically and politically.

However, there is another more potent power that these overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) have which most of us do not see and, therefore, has not harnessed yet.

More potent because if tapped, it could allow Philippine businesses, their products and services, to penetrate the economies of their host countries speedily and with minimal resistance. I am referring to their information power - the knowledge and insights that they have of their host countries.

Knowing Filipinos, I am certain their long stay, experience, interactions and the nature of their jobs in their host countries have enabled them to acquire knowledge and important insights. These are with regard the bureaucracy of the host government and their culture in the running of their businesses, which are, somehow, the very blueprint of any country's economy.

In the minds of these expatriates lie an endless reservoir of knowledge and insights that should be unlocked and utilized by our local businesses in their counter-globalization.

Over the years, we have sent our people abroad by force of economic deprivation. And these have empowered them economically and informationally. However, these powers were acquired at a high cost, especially, social costs.

Sadly though, only recently have we obtained an understanding of the significance of these powers, particularly, the economic power but not even clearly yet. And as usual, we valued the relevance of this economic power only when we witnessed in the 1997 crisis a demonstration of such power when the Korean and Thai expatriates sent their gold home to help prop up their economies. Although such acts did little to help, we hailed it because it confirmed the relevance of our expatriates.

However, we must not stop there.

We have at our disposal another power which could make the Philippine economy equal to those of the G8 countries. The long presence there of our expatriates has resulted in the creation of information power, which could be used to our advantage. Let us use these two powers so that we could recover the high costs we have invested.*

(Mr. Lepon is audit senior manager of Punongbayan & Araullo Cebu Office.  He is also a close friend of MMG.) 

(Related stories) Politics of fooling around By NINI B. CABAERO Filipinos abroad helped RP recovery By JOSE M. TIONGCO Asia still OFWs' top region of choice By MARLEN DEL MAR

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