The incoming administration to be headed by President-apparent Noynoy should never take labor export as a tool for development and should see forced migration as an effect of the worsening problem of unemployment in the country.
There is no way to solve forced migration but to aggressively pursue local job generation through improving our local agriculture and industry by implementing genuine agrarian reform and nationalist industrialization.
While strategically looking forward to ending forced migration, the new president should take the following viable steps that will provide immediate relief to OFWs and their families, and solve the worsening problems of Filipinos abroad.
1. Prosecute President Arroyo for corruption of OFW funds and other crimes against the Filipino migrant workers
Call for a thorough and immediate investigation of the OWWA Funds sourced from the US$25 welfare fund contribution and interest income of investments;
• The P530 million Medicare fund diverted to Philhealth Corporation which was used for Arroyo’s 2004 presidential bid. The P260M bogus claims exposed by then OWWA Administrator Virgilio Angelo himself just to justify OWWA Medicare fund transfer to Philhealth under the present Arroyo Administration.]
• The un-audited US$293,500 for the Middle East Preparedness Team headed by General Roy Cimatu during the US war of aggression to Iraq where repatriation of OFWs never took place
Make Arroyo criminally liable for wanton neglect of OFWs in distress (abused, maltreated, stranded, jailed, in deathrow);
Make Arroyo accountable for continuously deploying OFWs to high-risk and banned countries.
2. Ensure Justice and indemnification to migrant victims of human rights violations, and make erring officials accountable.
Work for the establishment of a special court for migrant workers. It takes several months to several years before a decision is made and justice served on complaints of OFWs filed at the POEA or NLRC. As to filing criminal charges against recruitment agencies or illegal recruiters in local courts, OFWs find it very difficult to shoulder costs for all the legal process.
Forge agreements with receiving governments that will ensure that violators of migrant rights will be punished;
File cases against abusive and erring officials with the Ombudsman, the Committee on Human Rights and other legal remedies, the Congress Committee on Overseas Migrants Affairs and the Senate Committee on Labor, Employment and Human Resource Development. Investigate the direct involvement of government officials in TESDA, DOLE, POEA, OWWA and DFA officials in illegal recruitment activities.
Immediate recall of officials with notorious record of neglect and are conniving with exploitative employers and human trafficking syndicates;
Establish a monitoring system on the conduct of government officials in exercising their functions as mandated by RA8042 and other related memoranda, circulars and executive and department orders.
3. Provide direct services and assistance to migrants and their families.
Reorient the OWWA, POEA, DFA-OUMWA and RP posts into true service institutions;
Work for the increase of the annual P1M Legal Assistance and P1M Repatriation Fund for migrant workers and OFWs in distress through the General Appropriations Act as mandated by Republic Act 8042 or the Magna Carta for Oveseas Filipinos and Migrant Workers Act of 1995, as amended by RA9422;
Push for a review of the annual OWWA budget. The current budget allocates 70% to administrative expenses and only 11% is allocated to on-site services and should be granted to all migrant workers and OFWs in distress regardless of their status;
Immediate provision of legal assistance to OFWs in deathrow (Dondon Lanuza, Gonzales Brothers, Eduardo Arcilla, Joselito Zapanta and more others) and detention, and scrap DFA policy of no legal assistance to jailed OFWs unless they are already given a death sentence;
Significantly increase the numbers of deployed Legal and Welfare Attaches over Police Attaches especially in countries with large concentration of OFWs and high presence of OFW abuse and exploitation – Middle-East, Singapore, Malaysia, Hong Kong and Taiwan;
Revamp and reorient the Pre-Departure Orientation Seminars (PDOS) from a money-making program for recruitment agencies to a genuine program educating migrant workers and their families of their rights and privileges;
Create a comprehensive reintegration program for OFWs that is not grounded on providing financial loans;
Institute a system that will address the social costs of migration. Fund a comprehensive study to identify how to mitigate effect of migration to the social fiber;
Create migrant programs in schools and barangays to increase the peoples’ awareness on migration especially the OFW families.
4. Repeal anti-migrant laws.
Scrap the OWWA Omnibus Policies (OOP) imposed and implemented by OWWA Board of Trustees through OWWA Board Resolution No. 038 and push for the reinstatement of the Legal Assistance Program, Medicare Program, General Financial Assistance Program and on-site services for migrant workers. The OOP limits OWWA Funds for OFWs to access while significantly increases the conditions for corruption;
Scrap the Memorandum Circular No. 04, New POEA Guidelines on the Deployment of Household Service Workers (under Gloria’s Supermaid Training);
Scrap the Mandatory contribution of OFWs to the PAG-IBIG Fund.
5. Ensure protection and work for the legalization of undocumented workers.
Protection and legalization of undocumented Filipino workers needs urgent action as crackdown operations become more massive due to more stringent and harsh immigrant laws such as the Return Directive of the European Union. This in aftermath of the global economic and financial crisis.
6. Create a comprehensive program for the protection for the migrant women and minors.
Push for a more accessible and fund-assured protective mechanisms for women and minors to include interventions, legal representation and litigation costs;
Push for the establishment of additional safe shelters for women and minors with in-house social workers, doctors and psychiatrists as support services to victims of rape and sexual abuse, maltreated and victims of trafficking,
7. Stop all forms of illegal recruitment and trafficking.
Push for an independent body to track down and investigate erring recruitment agencies (ex. Sentosa) and push for their prosecution and imposition of stiffer penalties to life imprisonment;
Conduct extensive education information and dissemination on illegal recruitment and trafficking from the barangay level and up;
Push for an independent investigation of the involvement, directly or indirectly, of government officials especially those from TESDA, POEA, BI/NAIA and the Department of Foreign Affairs, and;
8. Scrap all exorbitant and excessive state exactions and other fees.
Move to scrap all excessive government fees, taxes and charges such as the mandatory US$25 Welfare Fund contribution on a per contract basis, mandatory PAG-IBIG contribution, mandatory Consular Sponsorship fees in Macau (even if the Macau government doesn’t require it), additional fees on passport (such as Comelec certification), application and training fees.
9. Forge bilateral agreements based on international labor standards and other instrumentalities. Review the massive deployment of OFWs to Saudi Arabia.
Scrap existing exploitative bilateral agreements -- Unified Contract (Saudi Arabia), Employment Permit System (South Korea), JPEPA (Japan);
Actively campaign for the ratification of the UN Convention on the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families. Actively participate in the campaign for the establishment of an International Convention on Domestic Workers and the International Maritime Convention for Seafarers;
Push for the review of all existing agreements or other diplomatic relations, and foreign policies entered into by the Philippine government with the receiving governments especially those that involve Filipino labor. Work for the collation and critique of the existing national policies of receiving governments vis-à-vis international conventions, norms and other related documents;
Design education curriculum which will include CARHRIHL, international conventions and norms, obligations of states under international law to respect the rights of migrants and labor;
Seriously address the worsening problem of OFWs in Saudi Arabia. Over the years Saudi Arabia maintains to be the topmost destination of OFWs. Concurrently it also hosts to the most number of reported cases of human rights and labor-related violations. There are also no instituted mechanisms for the protection of migrant workers in the country;
Decisively enter into a comprehensive agreement with the Arabian government that will give protection to 1.5 million Filipinos in the Kingdom.
10. Provide migrant workers genuine representation in government or in decision-making bodies.
Work closely with genuine migrants’ organizations to ensure the promotion of a pro-people migrants’ agenda;
Ensure the representation of genuine migrants’ organizations in the process of crafting legislation so that the migrants’issues, concerns and rights will always be included in committee hearings, resolutions and bills and in their respective legislative agenda;
Push for the review of the OAV law an its conduct and the Partylist System Act and for reforms to ensure that migrants and other marginalized sectors be afforded equal representation in Congress.###