News from home: Tulfo wants no legal aid for OFWs facing drug charges; Filipinos still hungry

MANILA, Philippines — From a senator expressing frustration over the government providing assistance to overseas Filipino workers facing drug-related charges to reports of at least three million Filipinos remaining hungry – these are among our headlines and news stories from the past week we think you should know if you’re a Filipino based abroad.

Overseas Filipinos

• Migrant workers groups called out Sen. Raffy Tulfo after he proposed to deny legal aid to OFWs who are facing drug-related charges overseas. Migrante International pointed out that many of the OFWs are "also victims of poverty and joblessness in the Philippines." Also, even drug suspects are presumed innocent unless convicted by a court.
   
• The Philippine Embassy in Phnom Penh has requested assistance from the Department of Foreign Affairs for the repatriation of eight Filipinos who were victims of human trafficking related to the cryptocurrency scheme in Cambodia.
   
• The German Embassy in Manila last week clarified that it was not “pirating” Filipino nursing students to fill the gap in their healthcare system and instead cited its agreement with the Philippines which facilitates the deployment of healthcare workers there.
  
  This comes after a report from The STAR newspaper noted that there was fear the migration of students would further result to the shortage of healthcare workers in the Philippines.
  
  Meanwhile, the Department of Health said it is working to standardize the salaries of healthcare workers in public and private facilities, who currently have a wage gap of over P20,000.

Work and the economy

• A Social Weather Stations poll estimated that at least three million Filipino families, or 11.8% of households, experienced involuntary hunger at least once in the fourth quarter of 2022, inching up from the 11.3% recorded in the previous quarter.
   
• Calls for the imposition of a wealth tax resurfaced after Oxfam Pilipinas reported that nine of the richest Filipinos have more wealth than the bottom half or 55 million of the Philippine population.
   
• The Supreme Court has ordered Lazada to rehire five of their “illegally dismissed” riders after ruling that they are considered regular workers because all of the elements of regular employment were present in their engagement with the e-commerce giant.
  
  The ruling comes as calls to further protect digital workers, including couriers and drivers, resurface days ahead of the visit of the International Labor Organization’s High-Level Tripartite Mission delegation’s visit this week.

Politics and the nation

• Lawmakers and the public alike are still clueless as to what really caused the New Year’s day airspace outage that affected over 56,000 airport passengers after a five-hour hearing left more unanswered questions.
   
• Lawyer Jessica Lucila “Gigi” Reyes, former chief of staff of Presidential Legal Counsel Juan Ponce Enrile and who was accused of receiving P172.83 million on his behalf, was released from jail after nearly a decade behind bars. The Supreme Court said the lengthy proceedings violated her right to a speedy trial.
  
  Justice Secretary Jesus Crispin Remulla noted that the same reasoning may be used for former Sen. Leila de Lima’s case, who has been jailed for six years now over what she said are trumped up illegal drugs charges.
   
• Rappler CEO Maria Ressa and Rappler Holdings Corp. have been cleared of four tax violation charges, with the Court of Appeals decision being hailed by foreign governments as an “important and positive step towards upholding rule of law and media freedom."
   
• A Senate panel has cleared Former Education Secretary Leonor Briones of liability in the Department of Education's P979-million purchase of overpriced laptops of the Department of Education, saying she was just “used” for the scheme.
  
  The Senate Blue Ribbon Committee instead recommended administrative and criminal charges against former officials of the DepEd and the Procurement Service of the Department of Budget and Management.
   
• The Philippines is hoping it can send more athletes to the 2024 Paris Olympics, aiming for a delegation bigger than the 19-person contingent sent to compete in the 2021 Tokyo Games.

You can view last week’s rundown here or sign up for the newsletter here.

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