The Center for Local Governance and Ateneo Supreme Student Government in partnership with the Commission on Filipinos Overseas held a session on Multiple Faces of Migration as part of the Alternative Class Program being conducted in the university every semester. The activity involved orientation on the functions of CFO and workshops as part of the Financial Literacy Campaign of the PESO Sense Project of the said office. The Resource Speakers were Ms. Cindy San Pedro, Human Resource Officer of CFO, and Ms. Patricia Marie Salvador, Project Officer for Policy, Planning, and Research Division of the same office.

Upon registration, participants had provided information whether their parents or relatives are working or living abroad and as to what countries they are working. The discussion started with brief information about the CFO’s function and its mandate in accordance with the directives of the President of the Philippines to have a mandatory financial education for all migrant families and their communities. A video presentation was also shown to provide the participants with the kind of life an Overseas Filipino Worker (OFW) have abroad.

Several workshops were conducted and facilitated by the invited speakers. Workshop 1 was about Self-assessment towards finances; Workshop 2 was about Financial Planning Knowledge; Workshop 3 was about Personal Income and Expense Tracker; Workshop 4 was about the things you want to have in life; Workshop 5 was about creating own Dream Matrix; Workshop 6 was about the Obstacles one perceived in achieving the dream; and Workshop 7 was about Doing the Plan and Fulfilling the Dream Matrix. As part of the campaign, all of the participants took an oath to follow and apply the learning in the activity regarding proper handling of finances specially those coming from the remittances of OFWs.

The activity aims to: inspire the participants with the kind of life an OFW have; equip these children left-behind with the basics of handling the remittances; and gather data of those students dependent on their relatives or parents working abroad.

It was conducted on October 5, 2016 at the Arrupe Convention Hall, Ateneo de Naga University and participated by students coming from different colleges in the university where majority have family members living or working abroad.

by Jay P. Abawag