Overseas Filipino Workers (OFW) across the globe sent home a record SR101 billion ($26.923 billion) last year, a 6.2 percent increase from the SR95.1 billion ($25.351 billion) in 2013, according to a report issued recently by the country’s central bank.

The report, from the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP), stated that the major sources of cash and other forms of remittances were from OFWs based in the United States, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, Singapore, Japan, Canada and Hong Kong.

Commenting on this, Jun S. Aguilar, a veteran OFW who now works as a member of the technical working group in the Senate, said that while the Philippine government and the private sector acknowledge this huge volume of remittances, they are not treating overseas workers properly.

Aguilar, who is also the chairman of the Filipino Migrant Workers Group, said that the country’s Gross International Reserve is at an all-time high not because of “our high productivity but because of the record high remittances. This not only makes our balance of payments position healthy but also raises our credit rating with Moody’s and others,” said Aguilar.

He claimed that the Overseas Workers Welfare Administration (OWWA) has not been given any money by the government. Instead, it is supported by a SR93 ($25) fee paid by every OFW.

In addition, the government has not set aside any money that would allow OFWs to vote overseas, “yet the government wants us to exercise our voting rights,” he said. He said that the government has also not exempted OFWs from paying an airport terminal fee. It enforced the collection system by integrating it with their airfare effective from Feb. 1, 2015, claiming that OFWs can be reimbursed later.

“In summary, if we remove the OFW remittances from the economic equation, I am pretty sure that all those financial managers and economic gurus in the government will be left scratching their heads.”

Remittances support domestic consumption, which grew 6.1 percent last year, he said.

“The sustained demand for skilled Filipino workers has contributed to the steady growth of remittances,” the BSP said. Citing data from the Philippine Overseas Employment Association, it said 1.6 million Filipinos were deployed last year.

It added that job orders grew 10.7 percent to 878,609, about 43.6 percent of which were for service, production, and professional, technical and related workers in the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Taiwan and Qatar.

Cash remittances, which help power domestic consumption, reached a record high of SR91.2 billion ($24.31 billion) in 2014, up 5.8 percent from the year before, the central bank said. Remittances from land-based workers reached SR70.1 billion ($18.7 billion), while those sent by sea-based workers hit SR21 billion ($5.6 billion).