Keywords: migration governance, institutional reproduction, crisis, critical junctures, Philippines labour migration

Introduction

The Philippines has long been regarded as one of the major sources of migrants across the globe. In 1997, the Commission on Filipinos Overseas (CFO) estimated the number of Filipinos residing and working abroad at 6,974,065 in 193 countries, and in 2007, there were 7,754,263 Filipinos overseas or almost 9 per cent of the total Filipino population. This aggregate which includes permanent, temporary, and irregular migrants, and sea-based workers consistently increased to 10,238,614 in 2013. Consequently, the Philippines has become one of the most significant origin countries. In the World Migration Reports of the International Organisation of Migration (IOM) from 2000 to 2022, the Philippines was placed between 4th and 9th in the largest sources of migrants in the world. It has also been positioned as a major remittancerecipient country together with China, India, and Mexico (ibid.). The Philippines has continuously been the recipient of one of the largest shares of remittance from US$5.4 billion in 1995 to US$13.7 billion in 2005 and US$29.8 billion in 2015. Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, the remittances received by the Philippines peaked at US$33.47 billion. In 2020, both the personal remittances and cash remittances had a slight drop to US$33.19 billion from US$33.47 billion and to US$29.90 billion from US$30.13 billion, respectively (ibid.). There was a small dip in the remittance inflow between January and October 2020 at –0.9 per cent compared to the same period in 2019. However, in 2021 and 2022, personal remittances peaked again at US$34.89 billion and US$36.13 billion.