By MAX ESTAYO

Overseas Filipino Workers may be sending billions of dollars home, but their families here are hit by a double whammy, strong peso against the US dollar and weaker purchasing power.

A Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas study showed that half of the OFWs or more than 4 million or 24 million Filipinos (for an average of six per family) receiving wages in dollars have to tighten belts.

Belt tightening happens both ways for senders and receivers with the purchasing power of the peso down to 63 centavos from one peso in 2000.

Three years ago, every dollar sent home by an OFW means 55 pesos for the recipient. Today that dollar is worth P41 at best.

Three years ago the peso’s purchasing power is 77 centavos, now it is 69.

That three years ago $1,000 or P55,000 can mean a semester’s tuition in an exclusive school, that $1,000 this or P42,000 will definitely be not enough to pay for matriculation.

Likewise those who send home dollars, have to tighten their belts to send more dollars to enable their families cope with the higher cost of living.

BSP governor Amando Tetangco Jr. said that a little over 50 percent of OFWs are paid in dollars even if a recently study showed that only 12 percent based in the US and seabased workers earn in dollars.

The bigger chunk of the pie or more than 38 percent are workers paid in other currencies but whose remittances are coursed through American banks that remit in dollars.

Some remittances from the Middle East are by sent by correspondent-banks to the US en route to the Philippines so they end up also in dollars, the BSP study said.

Meanwhile, the assumption that half of the overseas Filipino population – which include the migrants and permanent residents that are also dollar earners – are hurt by the peso’s climb is being verified, Tetangco said.

The Development Bank of the Philippines, in a separate study, estimated the overseas Filipino population to have grown to 9.2 million in end-2007 from 8.2 million in end-2006.

About 2,700 Filipinos leave the Philippines daily or one million annually, DBP data showed.

Of the 8.2 million Filipinos abroad as of end-2006, majority or 43 percent (3.5 million) were in the US, Canada and territories, 22 percent (1.8 million) from Saudi Arabia and the Middle East, and 15 percent from Asia (1.2 million).

Europe accounts for 11 percent (888,260), and Australia and New Zealand four percent (339,963). Three percent (274,497) of the total are sea-based while a small portion (89,798) are in African states.

Of the $12.8-billion total remittances in 2006, $7.2 billion came from the Americas, $2.1 billion from Europe and $1.9 billion from the Middle East.

The peso rose by 18.8 percent against the dollar last year, the largest gain in three years