Despite that the wave of industrial development that has 【M1】______ swept much of East Asia in recent decades, the country of 80 million remains extremely poor, mismanaged and still' was 【M2】______ predominant agrarian. But the Philippines docs play a visible 【M3】______ role in the global economy, thanks largely to a single export commodity—its people. According to the government, I mil lion Philippines will go abroad as contract workers this year, 【M4】______ the biggest exodus ever. 'The Philippines has already sur passed Mexico as the largest source of migrant labor in the word,' says Manolo I. Abella, a migration specialist at the International Labour Office in Geneva. In all, about 8 mil lion Filipinos—an astounded one tenth of the country's 【M5】______ citizens—currently work overseas to support families back home. They remit more than ＄ 7 billion annually, according to the government, and that's only' official transfers. A recent Asian 【M6】______ Development Bank report put the real figure in the ＄ 14 billion to ＄ 21 billion range a sum that dwarfs both foreign direct investment and aid flowing into the country, and amounts 3 2 percent of GNP. In the past, the Philippines 【M7】______ is shamed by its inability to create enough good jobs to keep 【M8】______ its people at home. But hard economic reality—a 14 percent unemployment rate and one of the highest poverty indexes in the world ( nearly half the population subsists on less than ＄ 2 a day)—has shifted the sentiment. Today, in a move that countries like Indonesia and Bangladesh are likely to emulate itself, the government takes the position that, like it or not, 【M9】______ the overseas workers constitute nation's biggest comparative advantage in an increasingly borderless world. And so Manila makes it easy for its citizens to immigrate, and works hard, 【M10】______ through its embassies, to see that their rights as foreign workers are protected. 【M1】