Cheap oil should be a good thing for a country like the Philippines that imports almost all of its fuel, but there are 10 million reasons why that may not be the case.
That’s how many Filipinos work overseas, many of them on rigs, tankers and as domestic help or construction workers in oil-producing nations in the Middle East. Together they sent home $22.8 billion in the first 11 months of 2015, around 10 percent of gross domestic product.
The negative impact on remittances and less revenue from fuel taxes will outweigh the positive effects, according to Benjamin Diokno, the country’s budget secretary from 1998 to 2001.
Source: Ten Million Reasons Why Cheap Oil Might Hurt The Philippines