plugging western union from Malaysia

Childhood friend Ato has helped in making my dream come true as well... all the way from Malaysia.

He sent his pledge via Western Union. And although he said it wasn't necessary for me to do a good deed for him, he did go to great lengths in describing to me the beauty of the Western Union service.

1. It's real time. The moment someone from one end of the world (e.g. Malaysia) makes a deposit, the other person from the semi-other end (e.g. Philippines) can get it already.

2. There's a western union in almost every corner of the Philippines. In fact, our country may have the most number of outlets in the world.

3. It's well-established and is one of the oldest remittance institutions. Does anyone else seem to remember western union in the "Back to the Future" series... how michael j fox of the cowboy past sent himself a telegram??

4. In some countries, where IDs are non-existent, the sender can just give a question, and the receiver can pick it up by answering the question. O da va, customized to the culture.

Hmm. I should mention that Ato works in the IT firm that developed the Western Union technology, to explain the commercial nature of this post.

OFWs around the world use the remittance system all the time. And i've never really appreciated the importance of this process until i was at the receiving end... holding the cash in my hand and murmuring 'wow, the money reached me, that's a relief'. Multiply it by the need of a family who has a whole list of expenses: enrollments, hospitalizations and maybe just basic food & house expenses. Wow. That's really a relief then.