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A New Concept Of Sending Packages To Another Country

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By Douglas Mitchell


People sometimes migrate to look for greener pastures. This is especially true in countries where job opportunities are few or the pay is just too low. One particular country has been very successful in exporting workers. These often become resident aliens in another country and stay there for a long time. When they return home they bring with them present for family and friends using a concept call balikbayan box padala.

This particular container is a cultural expression of close knit family relations in the Philippines. It is a practice ingrained in attitudes and habits of the people from this nation. Even before the advent of this box, it has been a common practice to bring home some excess food during fiestas. When people travel to a different island, they are expected to bring home something.

This practice is peculiar only to this particular nation which is archipelagic and is composed of more than seven thousand islets and islands. It is geographically subdivided into three main regions namely Luzon, Mindanao, and the Visayan Islands. This is a largely Roman Catholic country with many other Christian denominations. Only Mindanao has a substantial Muslim influence.

This state is a polyglot one. It has several linguistic dialects almost in each of the islands. Despite three hundred years of Spanish colonialization, these dialects are still being actively spoken to this day, only very few can actually speak Spanish. This unlike in contiguous lands that were conquered by Spain where local dialects were totally eliminated and Spanish is now the main language.

The cultural influences were brought to other places where Filipino workers migrated to in seeking more viable job opportunities in the United States. The influx started with the shortage of professional nurses during the early seventies which the Philippines had plenty of. This started a trend of educational mass production of nurses. Often these workers are granted permanent residency status.

Filipinos are fond of sending items to their relatives and sometimes they schedule to return to home visits bringing along with them items as presents for friends and relatives. For those working inside the United States, these are placed inside what is called a balikbayan box. It is loosely translated or literally as repatriate boxes. The place an assortment of things inside this box and bring it with them to the Philippines.

The government of the Philippines eventually recognized this penchant for sending and bringing things from abroad, which by the way is also a trait of this people and formulated some legislation to exempt it from taxes up to a certain fixed value. This trait is the culmination of three hundred years of Spanish rule and fifty years of American occupation.

The concept was formulated in recognition of the economic contribution of these employees in terms of dollar remittances. Professional manpower has become a major export for this nation. There was a hitch to this program during the nine eleven terrorist attacks. In its aftermath, the homeland security department was created which strictly monitored and inspected these containers.

The most common complaint about this government program is pilferage. This happens when the packages got through the national postal service or through customs. It really is difficult for this plentiful packages to be monitored and tracked. Some employees of these services can be tempted to pilfer the contents once they are inspected. This will force the sender to seek other methods.




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