Overseas Filipino workers unaffected by crisis

Most of the more than 8 million Filipinos working overseas have not been affected yet by the global financial storm, but a contingency plan has been cobbled together for possible layoffs, President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo said Wednesday.

The workers are regarded as the country's financial backbone, with the earnings they send home _ US$14.45 billion last year _ accounting for 10 percent of gross domestic product in the impoverished Southeast Asian nation of 90 million people.

The bulk of them are in the Middle East, Asia, Europe and the United States, mostly working as nurses, laborers, construction workers and maids.

Arroyo told a Manila …