DAVAO CITY, 22 August — House Bill Number 180, which seeks to create a Filipino Overseas Bank, has been filed jointly by House Speaker Jose de Venecia and Davao City Rep. Prospero Nograles.

The bank is envisioned to become the primary financial institution that would take care of all the monetary needs of an estimated 7 million overseas Filipinos in 130 countries.

Officials have placed the annual remittance of expatriate Filipinos at $7 million, but that amount includes only the money sent through banks.  Many OFWs still send home their earnings through underground door-to-door services or through friends or relatives going home on vacation.  Others bring most of their earnings home when they go on vacation.

Nograles said a Filipino Overseas Bank could concentrate specifically on the banking, economic, financial housing and other related needs of the OFWs and their families here in the country.

He also said that the bank would enable the workers to prudently handle their hard-earned incomes by providing them guidance as to financial investments, safekeeping of their dollars, and even professionally handle their funds.

The bank can effectively assist the workers in their proper remittances of their earnings to their local beneficiaries in the Philippines.

House Bill 1080 proposes that the bank shall allocate 500 million pesos at 100-pesos par value per share for the overseas workers to invest as shareholders and owner of the bank while government will put its counterpart P500 million for an authorized capital stock of P1 billion for the bank.

Nograles added that a mere $100 investment of an OFW can get him at least 50 shares in the Bank.  If at least one million overseas workers will invest $100 in the bank, that would mean a $100-million capitalization.

Nograles assured that Rep. Jaime Lopez of Manila, the chairman of the House Committee on Banks and Financial Intermediaries, and Speaker de Venecia Jr. will push for the passage of the bill.

The FOB has been proposed by several OFW organizations since the time of President Fidel V. Ramos.