Directing OFWs to regular migration channels Philippines' ‘int'l commitment’ amid threats

Philippine authorities think the country did not let up in directing overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) to regular migration channels, this being a “commitment” to the non-binding Global Compact on Migration (GCM) by the United Nations.

A top official from the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) said the government has been steadily running its programs for OFWs to pass through regular migration pathways.

And amid “threats” of continued illegal recruitment, Undersecretary for Migration Affairs Eduardo Jose de Vega told an assembly last week that the country’s role in adhering to the GCM “is to go (for) regular migration” pathways.

His statement comes in the wake of last week’s repatriation of 125 Filipino workers allegedly trafficked to Laos. Last week also, the Department of Migrant Workers (DMW) closed a travel agency (Mandaluyong City) and a language center (Silang, Cavite) that had no licenses to send Filipino workers to Japan and Germany, respectively, while charging applicants exponential processing fees.

‘Commitments’

In a stakeholders’ consultation August 30 on the Philippines’ adherence to the GCM, De Vega said the country has been digitizing Apostille documents and the certificates issued by the Commission on Filipinos Overseas (CFO) for departing emigrants, students and Filipino spouses of foreigners.

De Vega also reported the country formed a task force to look at Philippine back door exits that trafficking syndicates exploit.

An example here is the “illegal” hiring of Filipino workers to Laos, with some 125 of them rescued and repatriated already. These workers were initially hired to be customer service officers, but were about to work for a cyber scam syndicate, DMW Undersecretary Bernard Olalia told the media last week.

These 125 Filipino workers went to Laos as tourists until they were directed to these cyber scam centers found at Laos’ Golden Triangle Special Economic Zone, located in Bokeo province.

De Vega added the Bureau of Immigration (BI) “newly-reorganized” its Immigration Protection and Border Enforcement Section (i-PROBES), even if former municipal mayor Alice Guo of Bamban, Tarlac was able to sneak out of the country recently.

Compliance

These commitments to “enhance pathways for safe and regular migration” will form part of a Philippine report for the second voluntary review of the GCM’s implementation in the Asia-Pacific region.

The UN General Assembly approved the GCM in December 2018. Though a non-binding consensus, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) called GCM the “first-ever inter-governmentally negotiated UN agreement on a common (and holistic) approach to international migration.”

Formally called the “Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration,” the GCM contains 23 objectives that allow countries of origin and destination to collaborate and address migration-related concerns through policies, programs, and bilateral-to-multilateral agreements.

The UN’s Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP) is set to monitor Asia-Pacific governments’ implementation of the GCM in a forthcoming second regional review this February 4-6, 2025 in Bangkok.

The Philippine office of IOM is helping the Philippine government produce its voluntary GCM review submission for the Bangkok regional review. A DFA team under its Office of the Undersecretary for Migration Affairs is preparing such a report.

This prospective submission is under a new era for Philippine migration management given the two-year operation of the Department of Migrant Workers (DMW), created under Republic Act 11641 on December 30, 2021.

But implementation efforts by the Philippines are “never perfect,” says immediate past IOM Asia Regional Director Sarah Lou Arriola told a room filled with civil society organizations during the stakeholders’ consultation.

Yet compared to other countries of origin, the Philippines has the migration management systems in place, Arriola added, while she prodded civil society groups and other stakeholders to continue checking on government programs for OFWs.

The OFW Journalism Consortium is a nonprofit news service writing stories on overseas Filipinos and the country’s migration phenomenon. This story stems from a story requirement in a journalism course at the University of Santo Tomas —Reporting on Global Migration— that the OFW Journalism Consortium is handling.