Balikbayan Boxes: The Worn Boxes That Carry Hearts Across Oceans

Wazzup Pilipinas!?

In an age of instant messaging and one-click deliveries, one ritual endures with steadfast resilience: the balikbayan box. Overloaded, tightly wrapped, and often dented by the time it arrives—those dents are the scars of an emotional voyage. They’re proof that love made the journey.

From Government Program to Heartfelt Ritual

It all traces back to the 1970s, when the Marcos administration launched the "Balikbayan Program." Aimed at reconnecting overseas Filipinos with home, the initiative offered subsidized airfares, duty-free shopping, and generous baggage allowances—making the legendary pasalubong tradition even more accessible 

In the 1980s, enterprising Filipino-Americans in cities like Los Angeles and New York—first with REN International in 1981, then Port Jersey Shipping in 1982—invented the door-to-door balikbayan box service, turning what was once carried into a permanent staple of diasporic life 

And as of today, around 400,000 balikbayan boxes arrive in the Philippines every month, a tangible testament to enduring ties across the seas 

Laws, Loopholes, and Love

In 1987, Corazon Aquino’s Executive Order No. 206 amended the Tariff and Customs Code to grant tax- and duty-free privileges to balikbayan boxes sent by overseas Filipinos to their families 

Fast-forward to 2016: Customs Administrative Order 05-2016 (CAO-05-2016) and its implementing rules allowed qualified Overseas Filipinos up to three tax-free shipments a year—each not exceeding ₱150,000-worth of personal goods—if they submitted an itemized packing list (the “Information Sheet”), proof of purchase, and passport copy 

However, backlash over the cumbersome paperwork led Bureau of Customs to suspend CAO-05-2016 and its counterpart CMO 04-2017 in late 2017, reverting to the more relaxed older regulations 

Why the Balikbayan Box Still Matters

In a world where you can remit money in seconds, why endure weeks at sea?

Because unwrapping a balikbayan box is unlike any digital transfer. It’s a multisensory family affair—kids scramble for chocolates, titas fight over lotion, and neighbors drift in to feel connected. Each item, labeled with a name, is a physical love note.

One Forex Cargo executive mused, “Money is good…but a thoughtfully packaged physical item? That lasts.” Their company ships roughly 30,000 boxes monthly—and that number more than triples during the “-ber months” leading to Christmas 

Evolving Tradition, Personal Stories

The contents of these boxes tell stories: Spam, imported sneakers, USB drives, toiletries—objects picked for both necessity and prestige. In a telling anecdote, a grandmother in the U.S. traced her grandkids’ feet on paper to ensure the shoes she bought fit perfectly back home. A consumer culture born from colonial influence makes imported goods symbols of status and trust.

Many OFWs plan their boxes for months. Some younger diaspora members once viewed the tradition as outdated—but later, as recipients, they came to cherish it. For them, becoming senders felt like inheriting a legacy—sealed in packing tape.

Yet not everyone is nostalgic. A voice from Reddit put it bluntly:

“You can get most of the stuff in BB [balikbayan] boxes in the PH… I never really bothered sending Balikbayan Boxes… a lot of younger immigrants... feel the same way.” 

Still, for countless families, a balikbayan box is more than cargo—it’s the weight of memory, sacrifice, and love, arriving at their door.

The balikbayan box persists—not as a relic of tradition, but as a vibrant symbol of kinship that endures, like the overseas Filipino workers themselves, bridging distance with heart, one dented box at a time.