10% of Filipinos left RP as of '04

www.sunstar.com.ph
Tuesday, August 30, 2005
10% of Filipinos left RP as of '04
By Jimmy P. Abayon

SOME ten percent of the country's more than 80 million people or 8.08
million Filipinos have left the Philippines as of December 2004, said
the Commission of Filipinos Overseas (CFO).

Officials from the CFO were in Dumaguete City on Tuesday to conduct an
awareness campaign on issues concerning migration and intermarriages.
Of the total, 3.19 million are permanent residents abroad, said CFO
official Janet Ramos.

Some 79 percent are in the US, 14 percent in Canada, seven percent in
Australia, six percent in Japan, one percent in Germany, and 0.5
percent in the United Kingdom.

Ma. Regina Angela Gallas, another CFO official, said from 1998 to 2004
4,887 Filipinos from Negros Oriental left the country to work or live
overseas.

Almost half, roughly 2,237, were from Dumaguete City.
From 1993 to 2004, some 1,692 Filipinos married foreigners of whom 696
were from Dumaguete City.

CFO also held a similar forum at Negros Oriental State University (Norsu).
Ramos said the number of Filipinos going abroad has been increasing in
recent years and that, based on the trend, it will continue to
increase in the coming years.

Some 55,137 Filipinos left the country as immigrants in 2003 and the
number increased to 64,824 last year.

She said an average of 300 to 350 Filipinos leaving the country as
immigrants register for CFO's pre-departure and guidance counseling
sessions daily.

CFO is a government agency catering to Filipino immigrants, either
through petition or intermarriage, and holds pre-departure and
guidance counseling sessions for Filipinos ready to leave the country.

The agency conducts annual awareness campaigns in provinces with a
high number of Filipino immigrants.

(August 28, 2005 issue)
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