A good day for OFWs

By Susan V. Ople, 27 Nov 2019

IN life, there will always be good days and bad days. The second day of this week turned out to be a very good day for our overseas Filipino workers and for genuine advocates of migrant workers’ rights. Yesterday (November 26), the House of Representatives through the joint hearing of the committee on reorganization and OFW affairs approved a consolidated bill detailing the powers, structures and functions of a new department for overseas Filipinos especially our OFWs.

Commendations are in order for Representatives Marvey Marino (Fifth District, Batangas) and Raymond Mendoza of the TUCP Party-list for chairing the joint hearing, as well Albay Rep. Joey Salceda and 1-Pacman Party-list Rep. Eric Pineda for their handling of the technical working group. The reasonable and timely amendments offered by Deputy Speaker LRay Villafuerte with the full support of OFW Family Party-list Rep. Bobby Pacquiao led to a sober and logical resolution of pending issues and concerns. The guiding hand of former Foreign Affairs Secretary and now House Speaker Alan Peter Cayetano can be felt all throughout the discussions.

To be fair and grateful, the technical working group led by Representative Salceda paved the way for an in-depth appreciation of what ought to be included and what can be deleted in previous versions. Contentious provisions involving insurance schemes were deleted. The decision to focus solely on the structure of the department accelerated the approval process. The House leadership has made sure that the consolidated version focused more and solely on the protection of our citizens abroad particularly those in dire need of government support and protection: our OFWs.

The Philippines has always been considered in the international community as a role model in safe and orderly migration. This will be further reinforced with the enactment of the House committee report creating this OFW department. Our country will be the first among all nations to include a definition of ethical recruitment in our laws. We shall also be the first among UN member-states to include the 23 objectives under the UN Global Compact on Safe and Orderly Migration in the proposed law’s Declaration of Principles.

As approved by the members of the joint committee, the proposed department shall be named, “Department of Filipinos Overseas and Foreign Employment.” It will have at least five undersecretaries, and regional offices that would become combination of current regional offices of the Overseas Workers Welfare Administration (OWWA) and the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA).

What happens to services onsite in countries where our citizens are? As approved by the joint committee, this new provision has been added: “The Department shall immediately establish the career Assistance-to-Nationals [ATN] corps similar to the foreign service corps and the foreign trade representatives corps. The hiring and selection, continuous training and education, merit promotion system, and rotation system for deployment and recall shall also be established by the Department, in accordance with existing Civil
Service Rules and Regulations.”

The ATN unit of the Post shall be the foreign office of the Department of Overseas Filipinos in all embassies and consulates. This unit shall absorb all the powers and functions of the labor attaché, welfare attaché, and social welfare attaché. Who will head the ATN unit overseas? It will be up to the Secretary to appoint the ATN unit head who will then bear the rank of Consul. Pending such appointments, the current ATN Foreign Service Officer of the Post shall be the interim head of the ATN unit.

Which of the existing agencies will be joining the new department? Based on joint committee deliberations, the Overseas Workers Welfare Administration will be retained as an attached agency to the new department. This will ensure that its P19.4-billion trust fund shall remain intact and under the governance of a Board of Trustees. The proposed House consolidated bill also states that the OWWA Fund cannot be used for non-members.

What happens to the POEA? The POEA, the Commission on Filipinos Overseas, and the Office of the Undersecretary for Migrant Workers’ Affairs, as well as other relevant offices shall be subsumed in the department. All regional offices will maintain offices and functions that are relevant to the work of the current POEA. This will eliminate the need for prospective OFWs from distant provinces to travel all the way to Metro Manila to jump-start their application process.

Interesting enough, the House version carries a sunset provision for the department it seeks to create: “Ten years from the creation of this Department, the Congressional Oversight Committee may choose to abolish the Department should circumstances prove that there is no more need for its existence. The relevance and practicality of maintaining the Department shall be reviewed every five years after the 10-year mandatory review.”

Members of Congress should be lining up to support this new measure, which when passed, shall make President Duterte’s campaign promise to our OFWs a reality. Having a new department for overseas Filipinos and foreign employment will give our modern-day heroes an institution to call their own. Like I said, it was a very good day indeed for those who genuinely love our OFWs.