Can we ever turn a remittance-driven economy around?

Throughout the 1970s the government of the Philippines promoted a “temporary” economic policy based on utilizing the deployment of workers as a way to address severe unemployment and promote economic development. Nearly forty years later, oversees workers and the remittances they send back to family members at home continue to drive the Filipino economy, while local agricultural and industrial sectors are failing. The continued lack of jobs in the Philippines is forcing workers to turn to migration, separating families and presenting youth with seemingly few alternatives for their own futures. In this context, Dr. Ofreno argues that officials must re-think the long-standing economic development schema and instead promote dignified alternatives, including investment at home, so that the national economy might lessen its dependency on remittances, instead becoming more self-efficient.