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Manila: President Gloria Arroyo leaves Manila for Hong Kong today on a mission to shore up political support to her government by launching programmes to benefit overseas Filipino workers (OFW).
Arroyo will kick off her working visit to the former British colony from today to April 1 with a cocktail reception for Hong Kong's Filipino community during which new programmes for OFWs will be launched formally.
An estimated 120,000 Filipinos work in Hong Kong, most of them as household workers.
The reception will feature a presentation by the Development Bank of the Philippines (DBP) about its Peso Hedging Programme and by the Land Bank of the Philippines (LBP) about its "i-Net Negosyo" programme and the OFW Cash Card.
The DBP's Peso Hedging Program consists of the "Peso Insurance" and "Peso Protect," where OFWs will have the opportunity to mitigate the effects of the Philippine peso appreciation towards their US dollar remittances or the equivalent in US dollars.
OFWs had been complaining that since the depreciation of the US dollar in relation to the Philippine peso last year overseas workers face diminishing earnings - a large part of which they remit back home to their families in the Philippines.
Since late 2006, the peso to US dollar exchange rate had gone down by at least 25 per cent, leaving millions of OFWs in a bind over how to cope with diminished earnings. Most Filipinos abroad are paid in the US dollar or its equivalent amount in the currency of their host country.
Loan facilities
The DBP also has an "i-Net Negosyo" (i-business) programme which is a loan facility offered to eligible OFWs for setting up a small business such as neighbourhood internet cafes.
The LBP has its OFW Cash Card which it dubs as a "safe, convenient, fast and affordable way that the OFWs can send their remittances to the Philippines".
But Arroyo's visit comes at a time when political support for her government had been suffering.
She had been accused of abetting or even profiting from a government-to-government transaction involving Chinese firm ZTE.
Arroyo cancelled the $329 million (Dh1,208 million) contract for establishing a national broadband network with China's state-run ZTE late last year after it was determined that the deal had been ridden with anomalies.
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