BAGUIO CITY -- The strong peso may have devalued the remittances of overseas Filipino workers, but two University of the Philippines studies suggest that OFWs have become the new power blocs in their communities in Northern Luzon.

But one of the studies said the Filipino youth grasped an offbeat value from OFWs -- that good parenting required them to leave the country in order to truly care for their children.

A resource management study by Marie Noel Ngoddo and another by Romelita Idia which looked into the social remittance patterns of a small La Union town showed that OFWs were highly influential in decision-making in the towns in Mt. Province and La Union.

Ngoddo and Idia, now an employee of the National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA), presented the studies, culled from their master’s theses, at UP Baguio on March 11.

Ngoddo’s study looked at how indigenous communities in Sadanga, Mt. Province, coped with modern life and a cash economy that “eroded” traditional community partnerships.

Villagers often cooperated in the annual cleaning of communal irrigation canals, but have been hiring contractors to do the task because money, some traced back to OFWs, was available, she said.

Ngoddo said OFWs were being counted among the villages’ more influential people to whom residents turn to solve community problems.

Idia’s study on “social remittances” explored how OFWs became the new power center for Acao village in Bauang, La Union.

She described “social remittance” as the intangible benefits provided by OFWs that profit a family or community, and suggested that it could provide the government with good leads on how the high rate of migration has been affecting local villages.

In consolidating the stories of seven families in Barangay Acao, Idia said OFWs introduced new ideas and political concepts derived from the land of their employment and brought with them new fashion styles, home furnishings and appetites the rest of the community began to value.

For example, neighborhoods began mulling over new traffic management concepts or ideas for cleaning a community once these were communicated to them by a returning OFW, she said.

She said balikbayan boxes sent by OFWs to their families best represented how foreign cultural norms were transmitted to the villages.

She said many neighbors looked forward to the boxes with as much anticipation as the family-beneficiary.

“Each time I open a balikbayan box, the first thing that strikes me is the fragrance whose source I still have to figure out. Could it be the whiff of the Saudi desert that gets trapped in that huge box?” she said, quoting an Acao resident.

Clothes from foreign shores have become the new status symbol for OFWs and their families, she added, and helped change minds in the villages.

“My mother sends me clothes from Saudi. I like the fabric but the dresses are too long for me so I ask my sister to shorten the hems. I wear them during special occasions or during Sunday Masses,” Idia, quoting a daughter of an Acao OFW, said.

Even architecture and kitchen designs help shape new concepts in Acao. An OFW returned home and proceeded to restyle his kitchen, taking ideas from the facilities of his Saudi employer.

But the government must be wary of the effects of OFWs on young minds, Idia said.

She said the children of OFWs were set on leaving the country.

“A good provider is someone who leaves. Going off to [Saudi] to provide for one’s family back home is what any responsible parent would do,” Idia said, quoting a daughter of an OFW.