OFW FORUM
Nora M, 42, a single mother who hails from Negros Occidental, is now seriously considering returning home for good.
She’s been away from home for 24 years while at work as a domestic helper in Hong Kong. The time seems ripe for her to quit her P30,000-a-month helper’s job and rejoin her parents who are both in their 90s, her only son who’s now an adult, her siblings and members of their extended clan in Negros.
“I’ve been away for so long. It’s very painful at times whenever my only son pressed repeatedly for me to come home for good,” she said.
“How do you respond when you get asked this haunting question – ‘Ma, you’ve taken care for many years of other people’s children. How about me, your only son?’ I couldn’t help but cry in silence whenever he pressed me for answers because I never had any satisfactory answers to give him,” she added.
“For three straight years now, I’ve not spent Christmas and New Year holidays with my parents and everyone in the family. This also makes me keener than before to return home for good,” said Nora.
But coming home for good is easier said than done. Not only for Nora, but also for thousands, even tens of thousands, from over 10 million overseas Filipino who wish to come home for good. Their prospects are dire when they come home. And this is mainly because many can’t depend effectively on the government’s existing reintegration program for returning OFWs.
But why so? Don’t returning OFWs deserve adequate reintegration assistance? Aren’t they often hailed by senior officials, including President Duterte, as “modern heroes” of the land? Since they send home an average of US$30 billion a year, can’t decent assistance – not dole outs or free money – be offered to them?
Apparently not. As things stand today, the OFW Reintegration Program is more a sham than anything else.
There are more than ample reasons for this unkind verdict. Since 2011, the government-owned Land Bank of the Philippines (LBP) has been designated as principal administrator of the P2 billion OFW reintegration funding scheme. But for all intents and purposes, LBP acts and behaves like a typical profit-driven private bank, apparently oblivious of its mandate to serve needy OFWs.
Its lending practices and policies clearly reflect its de facto nature as a profit-driven private bank. Start-up livelihood projects, clearly without any profit track record, are almost instantaneously disqualified from seeking loans. Collateral or security for loans, often in the form of a land title, is a standard requirement. Aren’t these the hallmarks of a typical private bank?
Nora found this out the hard way through her partner who knows bank practices and who also works in Hong Kong. They inquired about seeking a P500,000 loan for several livelihood projects in Bacolod at LandBank branches. A plot of land for commercial use also in Bacolod was offered as collateral. But LandBank branches in Bacolod simply ignored their loan inquiry via phone call, email and text message.
In the meantime, LandBank president and chief executive officer Cecilia Borromeo announced in July this year that the bank has approved a total of P1.89 billion worth of loans for 1,297 borrowers since the OFW reintegration funding scheme was launched in May 2011.
But a glaring fact immediately jumps from the key figures: Only 1,297 borrowers availed of LandBank reintegration loans in the past 10 years between 2011 and 2021? Or only 297 loan beneficiaries each year or a miniscule 10 people per month?
What kind of OFW reintegration program is this if its far, far from being inclusive?
If the annual or monthly number of OFW reintegration loan beneficiaries is juxtaposed against the 10.2 million overseas Filipinos count of the Commission on Filipinos Overseas, LandBank’s figures are clearly laughable and ridiculous.
The bank’s seeming aversion to lending to OFWs contrasts sharply with its consistent record of amassing huge profits – even amid the global COVID-19 pandemic. LandBank said it is on track to meet its 2021 year-end net profit target of P19.68 billion, a significant increase from P17.1 billion in 2020.
With the scale and magnitude of its annual income – with or without any global health crisis – LandBank can easily afford to raise its lending to OFWs if it wants to expand further its social development mandate.
Meantime, LandBank OFW reintegration program partner, Overseas Workers Welfare Administration, presses is pressing ahead with its parallel assistance program for returning OFWs. It provides a one-off P20,000 grant or free money to OFWs who have opted to come home for good and set up livelihood projects.
But with the unbridled spiral of prices in the country, how far can P20,000 go to start or set up even a micro livelihood project?
Clearly, the state of affairs relating to government’s reintegration assistance to returning OFWs leaves much to be desired.
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