When the Philippines launched an overseas employment program in the 1970s, the thrust was finding labor markets: The state not only promoted Filipino workers to the oil-rich but labor-short Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries, it also sold these uncharted Middle East destinations to Filipinos.

While a markedly improved economic situation in recent years has not diminished the outflows, it has allowed the country to move beyond its longstanding labor migration policy to incorporate migration into long-term development planning and strengthen the return and reintegration of overseas Filipino workers (OFWs).

Today, more than 10 million Filipinos-or about 10 percent of the population-are working and/or living abroad. For decades, sizeable numbers of Filipinos have left home in search of permanent settlement or temporary work overseas, trends long attributed to the fragile economy (and exacerbated by frequent natural disasters). In the Philippines, a deeply rooted and pervasive culture of migration has made moving abroad common, acceptable-even desirable-as an option or strategy for a better life.

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