As 2021 drew to a close, President Rodrigo Duterte signed a landmark piece of legislation that will have a long-term impact on the lives of millions of overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) and their families back home.
Republic Act No. 11641 created the Department of Migrant Workers (DMW), a new executive department dedicated to the welfare and continued advancement of OFWs. This was a campaign promise that President Duterte made together with his vice presidential running mate, former House Speaker Alan Peter Cayetano, in 2016.
In a recent media interview, Cayetano said the passage of RA 11641 is by no means the end of the proverbial marathon. He noted that for now, the DMW only exists on paper as long as it does not have an appointed Cabinet-level Secretary to head it. “I hope with the President’s political will, it would be set up quickly,” he said, adding that the new agency needs a leader that will see to its full establishment.
A former Secretary of the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) himself, Cayetano knows that setting up a new department could take an entire year. He warned that such a timeline could be complicated by the 2022 campaign season starting next month – with almost all elected government officials going into election mode. Therefore political will becomes crucial, and whoever exercises it will get the DMW up and running.
This would add to the Duterte administration’s legacy when it bows out of power on June 30. A functioning DMW would be a fitting addition to two other new departments in the executive branch: the Department of Human Settlements and Urban Development (DHSUD), and the Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT). The DHSUD is actually a revival of a similar department during the Marcos era, while the DICT was carved out from the erstwhile Department of Transportation and Communications.
Setting up the DMW in the last few months of the current government allows the latter to shape the agency into how it will be managed by future dispensations. Not only would this generate goodwill and favorable optics among Filipino voters who depend highly on remittances from abroad, it also sends a strong signal to millions of OFWs that Malacañang is serious about looking after their welfare.
Undoubtedly, this pragmatic aspect has not been lost on the major aspirants eyeing the presidency on May 9. In fact, Cayetano is challenging them to include the DMW’s activation as one of the priorities in the first 100 days of whoever emerges as the next Malacañang occupant. It should not be too much of an effort for either the outgoing or the incoming administration to set up the DMW because its basic parts are already in place. These include the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration and the Overseas Workers Welfare Administration, as well as units of the DFA, the Department of Social Welfare and Development, and the Department of Labor and Employment.
According to Cayetano, when he was DFA Secretary he used to have meetings with all those offices, including the Office of the Undersecretary for Migrant Workers’ Affairs (OUMWA), which was created by Republic Act No. 8024 in 1995. OUMWA is presently headed by Undersecretary Sarah Lou Arriola, who can easily be transferred to the DMW since the new agency is mandated to centralize all government offices serving OFWs.
“It always surprised me that almost all our executive departments have programs for OFWs, but they’re all siloed – they never see each other, they never talk to each other,” Cayetano lamented. That prompted him to become one of the DMW Act’s main proponents after seeing the need for a sharp relief in terms of administrative focus.
Since the manpower and infrastructure for the DMW already exist, all it takes is to nudge the bureaucrats into action, move around a few budget items, and get the agency going. Looks like a no-brainer as it is not exactly being built from scratch, with some rebranding to complement the centralization process.
After all, millions of OFWs – whose remittances and collective sacrifice tided over our economy through the worst of the pandemic-induced recession – deserve no less.
J. Albert Gamboa is a Life Member of the Financial Executives Institute of the Philippines (FINEX). He is the Chairman of the FINEX Media Affairs Committee and the Editor-in-Chief of FINEX Digest. The opinion expressed herein does not necessarily reflect the views of these institutions and the Manila Bulletin.