How to Earn Dollars in the Philippines

By Victorino Abrugar

How to earn dollars in the Philippines? Millions of Filipinos have left our country to work abroad. They sacrifice the opportunities to live with their loved ones just to earn higher salaries and wages offered by foreign employers.

One reason is that our currency, the Philippine Peso, is quite low in value compared to foreign currencies, such as the US dollar, European euro, UAE dirham, Saudi riyal, British pound, etcetera. Another reason is that most Filipinos are more reliant on labor and employment instead of entrepreneurship. They always think that starting a business is only feasible when there is substantial amount of money to be used as starting capital. Accordingly, they go abroad to find that capital. What they probably don’t know is that we can earn dollars even without leaving our valued country and our beloved families.

The Window To The World

We know that the typical Overseas Filipino Worker (OFWs) earns foreign money abroad by working with foreign employers. Fortunately, we can work with foreign employers without leaving our native land. Thanks to the power of the Internet, the world becomes just one click away. The Internet is a window that lets people connect to anyone in the world anytime and anywhere. This edge gives us the opportunities to earn dollars online not only through foreign employment, but also through foreign business relations. In fact, there are already a number of innovative Filipinos who are making money online. They enjoy it while having enough time and physical presence to nurture their families or children.

Two Ways To Earn Money Online

There are two ways or categories of making money online. These are online employment and online business. Online employment is when you become an employee to a foreign employer, whom you give your employment online. There is an employer-employee relationship that exists between you and your superior abroad. Your employer compensates your labor through wages, which can be paid hourly, weekly, semi-monthly or monthly. On the other hand, online business is serving customers or clients, rather than employers abroad. Here, you are your own boss. You also decide your time and schedule of work unlike an online employee who may work at a specified time instructed by his or her employer.

Online Employment

Online employment offers opportunity for Filipinos to work at home while earning dollars. Online employees work with foreign employees like OFWs, but the difference is that they don’t need to go out of our country to provide employment for them. However, online jobs require knowledge in Internet, emails and the like. Most online jobs require skills, such as data entry, graphic designing, business processing, accounting, online marketing and content writing. They can be full time or part time depending on the requirements of the employer. You may visit Odesk.com to find online works that will suit you best. Remember that foreign companies are sensitive with deadlines. Hence, “Filipino time” should be transformed to “on time”.

Online Business

I prefer online business instead of online employment because it offers more flexibility in time and unlimited income opportunities. Furthermore, you can be your own boss. Having an online business involves dealing with customers or clients over the Internet. This also means you should have products or services to be offered to them. You should be innovative, creative, passionate and unique to succeed in online entrepreneurship. One of the most popular ways to earn money online is through blogging. Many Filipinos are already enjoying dollars through their blogs. You may visit Top Blogs Philippines to see the most successful Filipino blogs today in different interests and categories. You may also observe and analyze them and learn how they monetize their blog and make money online. To start as a blogger, you can choose the interest you are most passionate of or where your best expertise is.

A useful blog with lots of visitors and traffic can be monetized in many ways. You can earn dollars through advertising, affiliate marketing (earning commission by selling other products), selling your own products, offering your own services, accepting paid reviews, forming membership clubs and other systems you can implement to maximize revenue and profit from your blog. A blog, if developed properly, can give you authority and influence in media on the interest you’re blogging. Remember that fame can help you get a fortune. Just think of how the offline media (newspapers and TV networks) are making money. You don’t need to invest lots of cash to gain authority in online and social media. You just need to invest hard work, passion, expertise and your willingness to help people to gain followers. For more information about earning from a blog, please read our article titled “How can a Filipino earn and make money online”.

Victorino Q. Abrugar is the founder of BusinessTips.ph, an online Business Ezine that provides free and useful articles, guides, news, tips, stories and inspirations on business, entrepreneurship, management, marketing, law, professional development and leadership to Filipinos and all the business owners, entrepreneurs, managers, marketers, leaders, teachers and business students around the world.