OFWs deserve own department — lawmaker

MANILA, Philippines — It is only but fitting for government to put up a department fully devoted to addressing the needs of overseas Filipino workers whose average $25-billion annual remittances have been keeping the local economy afloat, a lawmaker said yesterday. 

“One of the main issues against the establishment of the Department of OFWs is funding or the cost it would entail in creating a new office. But why would we look at the cost?” Rep. Fidel Nograles of Rizal asked.  

“If we are talking about money, then our primary consideration should be the dollars they have been remitting to their families. They have been our unsung heroes for the longest time now. Don’t they deserve something better? Can we not help them?” he pointed out. 

Nograles is among the more than 30 lawmakers who have filed a bill at the House of Representatives for the establishment of a Department of OFWs. A technical working group had been created to iron out the various bills’ key provisions. He has urged his colleagues to prioritize the creation of and funding for the department.

He disclosed that the personal remittances of OFWs reached $33.8 billion from 2.3 million migrant workers and has accounted for 9.7 percent of the country’s gross domestic product and 8.1 percent of the gross national income in 2018. 

The World Bank’s April 2019 Migration and Development Brief reported that the Philippines was the fourth biggest recipient of migrant worker remittances worldwide, behind India’s $78.6 billion, China’s $67.4 billion, and Mexico’s $35.7 billion.  

House Deputy Speaker LRay Villafuerte, another author of the measure, said problems perennially besetting the families of about more than 10 million OFWs across the globe might finally have some kind of resolution once the bill becomes law. 

He added that this is the chamber’s way of “recognizing” the vital contribution to the domestic economy of the ever-increasing number of OFWs “who are our modern-day heroes.”

The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas records showed that the OFW remittances from January to May this year soared to $13.7 billion or 4.1 percent higher than the same period in 2018.

“I have been with President Duterte in many of his official trips abroad and I have personally seen how our OFWs love our President,” Villafuerte stressed. “President Duterte has heard many stories about the hardships of our countrymen while working abroad and I understand why he wants Congress to speed up the passage of a measure creating an OFW department.”

The commitment for the passage of the OFW department bill was made by Villafuerte during his recent meeting at the House with leaders of the Alliance of Bonafide Recruiters for OFW’s Advancement and Development (Abroad), which earlier submitted a position paper to Malacañang and Congress identifying points of agreement and discussion on fine-tuning this priority bill of the Duterte administration.