OFW Forum
Jun Concepcion
Clamor from overseas workers is growing for the establishment of a dedicated Department of OFW) which will to attend to the needs of improving the working conditions OFWs in view of persistent problems, notably physical abuses that OFWs suffer in different parts of the Middle East.
Numerous bills for the creation of a DOOFW have been filed in both chambers of Congress. Senate hearings on the proposed DOOFW creation were held recently, raising hopes for the eventual creation of this agency.
Yes, OFWs deserve a dedicated agency that should provide them with services much better than those currently rendered by disparate agencies, notably DOLE, POEA, OWWA and the DFA. With over 10 million overseas Filipinos at work and living abroad today who send home about US$30 billion a year, they truly deserve a dedicated agency exclusively devoted to promoting and advancing their best interests. But how long will it take to sort out the overlapping functions of different these OFW-related agencies and place all of them harmoniously under one holistic and well-coordinated new entity or department? Years? Decades? For obvious reasons, top officials of these agencies wouldn’t want to lose their fat salaries and perks to a consolidated new OFW agency. Understandably, they will fight tooth and nail to retain their current status and perks – even with a new law prescribing the creation of a DOOFW.
If it takes years for a successful integration to be completed, will suffering OFWs have the luxury of time to wait for a properly functioning DOOFW to end their miseries in the Middle East and go back home to their loved ones in the Philippines? Unfortunately not. To most OFWs suffering from bad working conditions and abuses from employers, prolonged stay with cruel and sadistic employers can mean life or death, sanity or loss of it. They can’t wait long, and they often ask for immediate rescue and repatriation back home.
Unfortunately, staunch DOOFW advocates fail to use simple common sense as they also fail to recognize the immediate needs of distressed OFWs. Regrettably, they also fail to see that abused OFWs need immediate rescue and repatriation as they foolishly opt to look at the long-term benefits that a DOOFW can provide instead of the pressing immediate needs of distressed OFWs.
In this respect, staunch DOOFW advocates are irresponsible and narrow-minded as they conveniently gloss over critically vital facts, notably that it takes years for disparate agencies to be placed under one holistically functioning single agency, like the DOOFW, and that distressed OFWs can’t wait long as they need immediate help. More than a DOOFW, the following measures assume much greater urgency and more immediate action:
1] Suspend temporarily deployments to a Middle East country where an OFW is raped, seriously abused physically or even killed
2] Maintain the deployment ban until the culprit is prosecuted successfully – not merely after a pledge of prosecution is made by the host country
3] Ask the host country to provide equal protection to OFWs, just like what’s provided to local citizens of the host country
4] OFWs who will complain against the deployment ban should be directed to other countries where working conditions are less of a problem.