Remittances grew 1.3% in February 

Remittances from overseas Filipinos went up by 1.3 percent in February from a year ago, the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas said in a report by ABS-CBN.

February's total reached $2.509 billion compared to the $2.476 billion in the same month last year, the central bank said in a statement. 

"The expansion in cash remittances was due to the increase in receipts from land-based and sea-based workers," the BSP said.
 
Growth in cash remittances from the United States, Japan and Singapore largely contributed to the increase for the first 2 months of the year, it added.

In terms of country sources, the US posted the highest share of overall remittances at 41.6 percent in January to February, followed by Singapore, Saudi Arabia, Japan, the United Kingdom, the United Arab Emirates, Canada, Taiwan, Qatar, and Malaysia, data showed.

Personal remittances, meanwhile, rose 1.2 percent in February, the BSP said.

The total reached $2.793 billion in February from $2.759 billion in the same comparable period, which brought the total for the first 2 months of the year to $5.759 billion, the central bank said. 

However, the growth in personal remittances in February was slower compared to January due to the reimposition of restrictions in host countries and the Philippines as COVID-19 cases climbed with the emergence of the Omicron variant.