It is late afternoon on Terminal 2 of Paris' Charles de Gaulle Airport, and passengers of Air France flight AF192 to Manila are gathering at the boarding gate.
As the crowd builds up, one thing becomes noticeable - hardly any Caucasians can be seen. When it finally takes off, the Airbus is so packed with Filipino passengers that you would be forgiven if you thought its code, AF, actually stood for 'All Filipino'.
The passengers are not tourists returning from vacation; they are employees coming home from work. The 14-hour ride on the Airbus is the long commute for scores of Filipino seamen, programmers and domestic helpers who make their living in Western Europe.
Every day, thousands of Filipinos shuttle between Manila and all points of the compass. Those flying out - more than 2,000 daily - head for work, those flying in are taking a break from it.
The government estimates that more than seven million Filipinos - nearly 10 per cent of the country's population of 80 million - work abroad. A couple of million are immigrants who have changed citizenship, but almost all send money to relatives back in the Philippines.
Their money has kept the country alive. One government official estimates that remittances from overseas Filipino workers total about US$9 billion (HK$70.2 billion) a year. Another official thinks the number could easily be double that, which would make Filipinos the country's top export.
