SINGAPORE (Dow Jones ) – The Philippine economy, among Asia's most sluggish, doesn't provide many reasons to buy the peso.

But the contribution of millions of Filipino overseas workers just might.

The Philippines runs a chronic trade deficit and attracts little foreign capital, but remittances back to the country from its army of workers abroad have helped the economy post current-account surpluses since 2003.

This supports the peso despite Manila racking up debt of about 70% of gross domestic product – among Asia's worst. Remittance inflows beat market and government expectations the past two years, and now overseas Filipinos look set to repeat the trick.

The flood of money back into the country may not be enough to boost the peso to the ranks of Asia's best performers, alongside the Indonesian rupiah and the Malaysian ringgit, especially after the Philippine currency failed to get much help from the relatively smooth election of Benigno Aquino as president in May.

But the remittances could keep the peso on a slow uptrend back toward the two-year highs hit in April, when the dollar briefly dipped below P44. Accelerating remittances may take the dollar back down to P44 by year's end, said Goldman Sachs economist Prajul Bhandari. Along with a recovering information-technology industry, "remittances are likely to give a push to private consumption, GDP growth and the peso," he wrote in a report.

After stellar May numbers last week, remittances may pick up now, given the trend of recent years, Bhandari said.

Remittances rose 6.5% in May from a year earlier to a record $1.6 billion, picking up from April's 5.4% rise and beating forecasts.

The 1.6% on-month growth was faster than the 1.4% posted in April.

Many private forecasters tip a 10% rise in remittances this year to around $20 billion, above the view of the Philippine government, which raised its full-year forecast to 8% from 6% in April but is to review the prediction before the end of September.

More than eight million Filipinos, some 8% of the population, work overseas. Helping remittances, they have increasingly moved from such low-income jobs as domestic helpers into better-paying jobs as nurses or office workers. The overseas workers aren't concentrated in any region but are spread across Asia, the Persian Gulf and North America – limiting the impact of local economic slowdowns on remittance flows.

Still, some of the peso-positive effect of remittances may be offset by intervention from the Philippine central bank in coming months, analysts say. Traders say the authorities have been selling pesos for dollars to build up the country's reserves – at $48.4 billion, Asia's lowest after Pakistan.