Spare those balikbayan boxes

Published by the Visayan Daily Star Publications, Inc.

NINFA R. LEONARDIA Editor-in-Chief & President

CARLA P. GOMEZ Editor CHERYL CRUZ Desk Editor PATRICK PANGILINAN Busines Editor NIDA A. BUENAFE Sports Editor RENE GENOVE Bureau Chief, Dumaguete MAJA P. DELY Advertising Coordinator

CARLOS ANTONIO L. LEONARDIA Administrative Officer

The recent advice given by the Department of Labor and Employment to overseas Filipino workers about rising above what it called the “balikbayan box mentality” is a very timely and sensible one.

Anybody who has family members or friends who work in other countries should be familiar with what the DOLE calls the balikbayan box mentality. This refers to the very common practice of such OFWs to regularly fill up such boxes with gifts and household items as well as clothing, footwear and even canned food to send home. While these are great favorites with their loved ones in the country, who look forward with great anticipation to their arrival, there is a downside to the practice that could affect the future of the worker, especially when retirement comes.

The DOLE advice is very practical, because, by spending so much on those items, some of which are not even necessities and may even be useless luxury items, the sender often fails to think of saving, even just part of his or her earnings for the proverbial rainy day, or for retirement. So intent are they in pleasing their families, and, probably, in the case of parents, the need to “make up” for their absence, and the guilt feeling that goes with it, makes them go overboard in spending so much to fill those balikbayan boxes.

The DOLE has probably noted that many of those overseas workers sometimes reach retirement, or are forced to return home due to health or family problems, and that is when they realize that they have hardly anything left for the days when they are no longer able to work and earn. And that is probably when they recall that the amount spent on the goods they had regularly sent home in those balikbayan boxes, could have helped them over in such days.

Because of this, we hope the DOLE will go farther, and use its facilities and manpower to orient our OFWs on the need to save, and go easy on those send-home items much of which may sometimes not even be used, at all.*