I learned that Overseas Filipino Workers are now required to pay P100 monthly to their PAG-IBIG Fund. This bit of news reminded me of the time my wife and I withdrew our PAG-IBIG Fund early this year because we have migrated to a new country. Even as employees in the Philippines, we did not find much value as PAG-IBIG Fund members. SSS was ok because we were able to take out a loan, but the primary service we knew of PAG-IBIG is that it can be used for a housing loan. But with salaries just enough to get by every month, there wasn't really much left to pay for a housing loan. So we were comforting ourselves with the fact that the company we work for sets aside money for our PAG-IBIG Fund which we can use someday.
Which comes as a big disappointment when the amount we were able to get out of the PAG-IBIG Fund was only 30k+ for my wife, and 40k+ for me. We were expecting more from over 14 years as taxpayers.
So frankly, I am not sure about how our OFWs will benefit from this additional expense. But then again, that's just based on my personal outlook. And based on the article below from abs-cbnnews.com, this is just one more fee an OFW has to pay the government. Justifying that the OFW can take a loan after two years is not helping either because it is still a LOAN which needs to be paid back with interest. Where's the assistance to the modern-day heroes in that?
Related link: OFWs now required to contribute to PAG-IBIG Fund
Thank you for sharing this insightful information re: PAG-IBIG fund.
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