DFA, DOLE support essential to Bangsamoro OFW law

COTABATO CITY, Philippines — The Bangsamoro government shall coordinate with Malacañang its implementation of a new regional law protecting constituent-overseas workers from maltreatment by employers.

The Bangsamoro Transition Authority, or BTA, also known as the regional interim parliament, approved on final reading Thursday the Overseas Bangsamoro Workers Act.

The law was proposed by the region’s labor minister, Romeo Sema.

“It shall be implemented in close coordination with the central offices of the Department of Labor and Employment, the Department of Foreign Affairs and the Philippine Overseas Labor Office,” Sema said Saturday.

Stakeholders were markedly elated with the approval of the OBWA by the 80-member parliament of the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao, led by the region’s chief minister, Ahod Balawag Ebrahim.

“We are certain this regional law will ensure the protection and welfare of our children while out there in the Middle East,” a 58-year-old mother of two domestic helpers in Kuwait, Fatima Sidik, said in Filipino..   

The OBWA also aims to establish service facets for socio-economic and psycho-social interventions needed by overseas Filipino workers from the five provinces and three cities inside BARMM’s core territory.

Farmer Mutalib Gandingan, 54, said Saturday he will secure a copy of the OBWA and mail it to his son working as janitor in a commercial establishment in Qatar.

North Cotabato Vice Gov. Emmylou Mendoza and Gerry Salapuddin, administrator of the state-run Southern Philippines Development Authority, lauded in separate statements Friday the Ministry of Labor and Employment-BARMM and the BTA for having crafted together the OBWA.

“This is a much-needed edict. We have so many cases of maltreatment by foreign employers of OFWs from BARMM. This law can surely help address the problem,” Salapuddin said.

Salapuddin said he was fascinated when he learned that the OBWA aims to create outfits that would closely monitor the plight of OFWs abroad, particularly those in the Middle East, and assist them in connecting with Philippine embassies in case of emergencies.

Mendoza, a first-termer North Cotabato vice governor, said she is ready to help disseminate the contents of the law to residents of the 63 barangays in their province that are now under the BARMM government.

“We have OFWs from these areas whose residents voted in favor of the inclusion of their barangays into BARMM’s territory during a plebiscite two years ago,” Mendoza said.

Mendoza said she will request the BARMM labor ministry to tap radio stations in North Cotabato in disseminating the benefits OBWA can give to OFWs from the 63 barangays.

“My office can support that initiative,” Mendoza said.