Gov’t says to beef up OFW centers abroad

MANILA – The Philippines’s labor department reiterated its policy to reinforce centers for overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) abroad by deploying more employees overseas.

This was one of the policy pronouncements inscribed in the Department of Labor and Employment document for the first hundred days of President Benigno Aquino III that ended October 8.

“Work with the DFA to transform Philippine embassies, consular offices and Philippine Overseas Labor Offices (POLOs) into centers of care and service for overseas workers by assigning more foreign service officers to post where there are many OFWs and train them in the needs of the communities they serve,” the DOLE said in its 22-point Platform and Policy Pronouncements on Labor and Employment.

The pronouncements came after the International Organization for Migration (IOM) released a report recommending that government provide more resources to Filipino Workers Resource Centers (FWRCs) so that services may be expanded.

The report titled “Migrant Resource Centers: An Initial Assessment” said that apart from resources, government should also make sure FWRCs are used by as many potential clients and that migrants’ savings and skills are appropriately used inside these centers.

An FWRC is mandated by section 19 of Philippine Republic Act 8042 (or the 1995 Migrant Workers and Overseas Filipinos Act) to be set up in any country where there are more than 20,000 OFWs.

FWRCs were among the earliest formed migrant resource centers (MRCs) worldwide, next to the Australia’s Spectrum MRC, which was formed in 1976.

Currently, there are 21 FWRCs found in 18 countries, with three of them in OFW-rich Saudi Arabia and two in the United Arab Emirates –another OFW beehive in the Middle East region.

IOM assessed some 13 MRCs, whether set up in the origin country of migrants and/or in host countries, including those from Albania, Australia, Colombia, Croatia, Democratic Republic of Congo, Lebanon, Mali, Portugal, Slovakia, Sri Lanka, and Tajikistan.

The IOM report, written by Paul Tacon and Elizabeth Warn, defines MRCs as “physical structures which provide services directly to migrants to facilitate and promote their recourse to legal, voluntary, orderly and protected migration.”

Praise

Through the report, the IOM heaped praise on the Philippine government’s FWRCs for its services aimed at empowering migrant workers for development, and especially for protecting the rights of migrant workers.

The international government body also lauded FWRCs for offering remittance-related services such as information on remittances and their transfer costs, partnerships to facilitate remittance transfers, and information on investment options.

The FWRCs were also noted to be offering employment-related assistance such as job-matching services, and for promoting the involvement of migrants in so-called “migration-for-development” projects such as donations to the origin country by hometown associations.

In terms of migrant protection, the IOM also gave kudos to FWRCs for accessibility of services, “providing 24-7 services to migrants in emergency situations, and migrants who must not miss their usual work schedules.”

“FWRCs show particularly good practices in this respect, as they are required to be available to migrants at all times, on public holidays and weekends as well as working days,” the IOM report wrote.

FWRCs were also lauded in the IOM report for their “extensive experience in assisting migrants,” not just in forms such as legal assistance but also including psycho-social counseling and on-site physical and mental health services.

And being a physical structure, an FWRC has sheltered distressed women and men migrant workers such as those who ran away from work, those imprisoned in private employers’ homes or on work sites, those abused migrant workers, those whose contracts were illegally terminated, those victims of illegal recruitment, and those facing homelessness in the host country.

The Philippine embassy or consulate then assists the repatriation of the sheltered OFWs, while receiving newer OFWs under vulnerable conditions.

FWRCs were also lauded by IOM in terms of providing vital information to the home government on the conditions and issues faced by Filipino workers, thus assisting the Philippine government’s formulation of policies related to OFWs.

Pressures

The IOM evaluated FWRCs only in terms of services empowering migrants for development, services empowering migrants for protection, and set-up and sustainability.

Hence, it failed to give comments on FWRCs’ performance in undertaking a needs-assessment, maintaining contacts with migrant worker-clients, and, networks and partnerships with international groups and host country service providers for migrant workers.

Likewise, the IOM also avoided remarking on the FWRCs in the following criteria: integration of centers into government structures; sustainability for independent centers; and, capacity-building activities that benefit government’s policy formulation activities and non-government organizations’ migrant assistance-related activities.

The resources for these, however, have been a cause of concern and identified earlier by the Philippines’ audit commission.

A 2008 audit report by the Commission on Audit on the government’s overseas workers’ welfare program reveals high ratios between FWRC staff and the total number of OFWs and cases of distressed OFWs whom centers receive and give temporary shelter to.

Citing 2006 data, six staff of the FWRC in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia are serving an estimated total of 540,000 OFWs (for a ratio of one is to 90,000), while the two FWRC staff in neighboring Saudi Arabia are serving an estimated total of 200,000 OFWs there (for a ratio of one to 240,000).

Based on the number of welfare cases that year, there’s only one staff catering to 6,524 cases at the FWRC in Taipei City, Taiwan. With only two staff in the Taipei FWRC, this would mean each must manage at least 17.9 cases a day.

Their colleagues at the FWRC in Manama, Bahrain, may appear to take it easy at 6.8 cases a day or one staff for 2,489 cases. The Manama FWRC also has two staff.

These staff comes from the Overseas Workers Welfare Administration (OWWA), which also forks out the funds for the center’s maintenance. Likewise, personnel is also tapped from the embassy or consulate (under the Department of Foreign Affairs), and labor attaches who are under the Labor department’s corps of POLOs.

Promises

This discrepancy in staff against the number of cases reported to the FWRC is being pinned by the Commission on Audit as something to do with standards.

“The wide range of ratios in relation to the number of OFWs and welfare cases received are an indication of the absence of a standard on the number of POLO/OWWA personnel needed to ensure responsive welfare services to OFWs,” the COA report wrote.

In reply, also contained in the same COA report, OWWA officials said the agency’s community reach-out and developmental programs through the FWRCs are “effective medium [sic]” since FWRCs tap the help of Filipino organizations in host countries in delivering welfare services to migrant workers.

As to repatriating OFWs who are sheltered in FWRCs, OWWA officials said an OFW’s length of stay is dependent, in regions such as the Middle East, on the issuance of a document like an exit permit which, in turn, is issued if the OFW’s employer clears the worker of any wrongdoing.

The 100-day paper by the DOLE said that as of 30 July 2010, there were 1,204 wards in the FWRCs; 561 of whom were repatriated using DOLE and OWWA funds, in July and August 2010.

“All ‘repatriation-ready’ OFWs are to be home within one month from the issuance of exit clearance by the host government,” the DOLE paper said.

It added that the labor department and the OWWA “also provided repatriation funds for Filipinos threatened to be expelled from Kandara bridge. POLO Jeddah funded the temporary accommodation at Hajj terminal, filing of deportation documents, and eventual repatriation of overstaying Filipino nationals.

The paper added that 734 OFWs from Jeddah were repatriated from 01 July to 26 September 2010.

To note, the labor department said welfare and protection for OFWs “will remain a government priority that require comprehensive program and budget support during the entire migration cycle from pre-employment, on-site employment and post deployment which includes reintegration.” –Jeremaiah M. Opiniano, OFW Journalism Consortium with reports from Isagani De La Paz