MANILA, Philippines—Remittances sent to the Philippines reached a record high in March, defying forecasts that the global crisis would shrink funds coming from overseas Filipino workers.

The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas reported Friday that remittances—which largely influence household consumption—coursed through the banking system reached $1.47 billion in March, the highest amount for any one-month period.

This was 3.1-percent higher than the $1.43 billion in remittances a year ago and 11-percent more than the previous month’s $1.3 billion.

“Remittance flows continued to be shored up by the steady labor demand for Filipino skills abroad and the wider access to expanded money transfer services by overseas Filipinos and their beneficiaries,” the BSP said in a statement.

For the first quarter, remittances amounted to $4.06 billion, up 2.7 percent from $3.95 billion in the same period last year.

There might be Filipinos affected by job cuts in advanced economies, but the BSP said this was offset by demand for Filipino labor from other markets.

Citing data from the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration, the BSP said the number of deployed Filipinos continued to grow, a sign remittances were not likely to drop as projected by many economists.

There were about 756,000 job orders placed with the POEA in the first two months of the year. Of this, about 280,000 or 37 percent have been processed. The jobs were mostly in the production, services and professional skills category, the BSP said.

According to official projections by the BSP, remittances for 2009 would approximate last year’s $16.4 billion.

But BSP Governor Amando Tetangco Jr. said the projection was conservative, noting there was a probability remittances could record positive growth this year.

Tetangco said the BSP could not agree with forecasts by some economists from the private sector and multilateral agencies that remittances would sharply contract this year because of layoffs being experiences in advanced economies.

He said countries like Canada, Qatar, Australia, Japan, Korea, Algeria, Saudi Arabia and those from the Middle East have announced new demand for labor to fill in job vacancies in construction, healthcare and other sectors.

“Philippine overseas labor offices have also reported new job opportunities in markets that have not been severely affected by the global financial strains. These developments provide continued optimism for stability in remittances, notwithstanding the displacement of some OFWs as a result of the global economic crisis,” the BSP said.

The BSP said remittances in the first quarter were sent mostly from the United States, Canada, Saudi Arabia, Japan, United Kingdom, Singapore, Italy, United Arab Emirates and Germany.