MIGRANTS

‘Modern Heroes’ as ‘Milking Cows’
A mere 0.60 centavos allotted for migrants’ welfare

Migrante International chairperson Connie Bragas-Regalado, herself a former migrant worker, said the Arroyo administration has reached the peak of its intensified labor export policy (with an estimated eight million overseas Filipino workers (OFWs), documented and undocumented, deployed abroad. This figure represents approximately 10 percent of the country’s 80 million population.

BY AUBREY SC MAKILAN
Bulatlat

A former Filipino migrant worker said that the Arroyo government has reached the peak of its intensified labor export policy (LEP) with an estimated eight million overseas Filipino workers (OFWs), documented and undocumented, deployed abroad. This figure represents approximately ten percent of the country’s 80 million population. Documented sea and land-based OFWs has reached 981,677 in 2005.  

“Lantaran nang ipinambabala sa kanyon ang mga OFWs,” (OFWs are blatantly being used as cannon fodder.) said Migrante International chairperson Connie Bragas-Regalado.  She said OFWs are the “milking cows” of government.

Terrorized lives 

The LEP, which has facilitated the conscription of Filipino workers to support the wars being launched by the U.S. government, has brought OFWs at the doorsteps of danger, especially in war-torn countries.

Angelo dela Cruz, an oil tank driver of a Saudi Arabian company supplying U.S. military camps in Falluja, and Roberto Tarongoy, an accountant in the Saudi Arabian firm Trading and Contracting Co. (SATCo.), were abducted separate incidents in Iraq on July 8 and Nov. 1, 2005, respectively. Another hostage, United Nations worker Angelito Nayan was taken by Afghan rebels in Kabul on Oct. 28, 2005.

There were others injured in bombings in Israel and Iraq.

Rodrigo Reyes, a 52-year old truck driver, was killed in an ambush in Abdali, Iraq on April 28, 2005. Warehouseman Raymond Natividad and 46-year-old engineer Raul Carlos Flores were also killed because of Iraqi resistance operations.  Natividad was killed by mortar fire on May 11, 2004 while working in a U.S. military camp, Camp Anaconda, in Balad, Iraq. Natividad’s neighbors at the Madapdap Resettlement Center, a resettlement area for victims of the 1990 Mt. Pinatubo eruption, in Mabalacat, Pampanga (93 kms. north of Manila) renamed the center as Barangay Iraq (Iraq village) in his memory.

Despite all these incidents, many OFWs, including women, still persist with many more seeking jobs even in war-torn countries.

Records of the Philippine Overseas Employment Agency (POEA) showed there was a monthly increase in the number of OFWs in countries where deployment suspension orders were issued by the Department of Labor and Employment (DoLE) as far back as 2003, such the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Israel, and Kuwait.

Protecting the rights of OFWs

Bragas-Regalado said that the government should ensure that they have bilateral agreements with host countries to protect the welfare of migrant Filipinos.

But, she said, the Overseas Workers Welfare Administration (OWWA) reported that most, if not all, of the host countries insisted that their national laws were enough in protecting the rights of migrants and that there was no need for bilateral agreements. Ominously, the U.S. government tried to pass an anti-immigrant bill if not for the groundswell of protest actions it created.

Bragas-Regalado said, “The fact that many OFWs continue to languish in jail in their host countries, with some in  death row, proves that national laws are not enough to protect the rights of migrant workers.” She added that there is a substantial number of “mysterious deaths” of Filipina domestic helpers in other countries under the watch of the Arroyo administration. Until November last year, Migrante reported that at least 15 OFW ‘mysterious deaths’ since 2002 remain unsolved.

‘Milking cows’

The mass exodus of Filipinos to other countries, called as the government-sponsored “brain drain,” has been a widespread trend among health workers, teachers, and other professionals. Although the country produces enough of these professionals to arrest the worsening shortage in the country, more and more of them leave for abroad, with some accepting jobs as housemaids.

It is undeniable that this exodus has kept the economy surviving even in times of crisis. OFWs help the economy by remitting dollars to their loved ones in the Philippines

Based on data from the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP or Central Bank of the Philippines), the cumulative OFW remittances for the first 10 months of the year soared to US$8.8 billion or 27.1 percent higher than the US$6.9 billion posted during the same period last year. This is higher than the total remittances in 2004 amounting to US$8.5 million.

The increase in remittances is attributed to the increase in OFW deployment.

This year, the BSP reported that remittances reached $1.14 billion in April, raising the five-month inflows by 14.8 percent to $4.9 billion. The government expects this year’s total remittance to be at least 10 percent above the record of $10.7 billion in 2005.

But the allocation of OFW remittances under the Arroyo administration is plagued with corruption.

Various migrant groups have denounced the Arroyo administration for its alleged gross misuse and plunder of the P8 billion OFW trust fund at the OWWA for her candidacy in the 2004 elections. These include “anomalous” transfers  of funds such as the P530 million Medicare Fund for OFWs transferred to PhilHealth and the P23.587 million (then $87,757) in OWWA funds rechanneled to the International Labor Affairs Service of the Department of Labor and Employment (DoLE-ILAS).

Migrante also called for investigations of other “anomalous” transactions such as the alleged P30 million transfer by the Manila Economic Cultural Office (MECO) to the Office of the President in August 2003 and the US$293,500 released to Ambassador Roy Cimatu supposedly for massive evacuation operations in the Middle East during the U.S.-Iraq war in April 2003.

Bragas-Regalado was able to confirm from former OWWA administrator Virgilio Angelo that no evacuation took place in the Middle East at that time.

Today, under protest is the plan to use P1 billion ($19,169,941 at an exchange rate of $1=P52.165) of OWWA funds for the conversion of the Philippine Postal Savings Bank into an overseas Filipino worker (OFW) bank.

Bragas-Regalado also said that government profits from fees being charged to OFWs should also be accounted for. She said an OFW applicant pays an average of P17,925 ($343.62) in government fees before he or she leaves the country. This does not include the astronomical charges of recruitment and manning agencies.

“’Yang LEP, negosyo talaga ‘yan,” she said, “Kung mayroon mang serbisyo ngayon na sinasabi ang owwa, sa totoo lang, koleksyon na lang ngayon ng $25 membership fee.” (The LEP is actually a business.  If there is one service which OWWA can claim, it is only the collection of the $25 membership fee.)

‘Criminal neglect’

The OFWs have saved the country from economic collapse because of their remittances but when they are the ones needing help, the government could not do anything to protect them, she lamented.

As a result, she said, the number of distressed OFWs in host countries continue to increase. Not even Philippine labor posts in these host countries can ensure their welfare, she said.

In 2004, there were eight Philippine diplomatic posts in the Americas with 50 areas of jurisdiction, 20 posts in Asia and the Pacific covering 40 areas, 17 in Europe spanning 55 areas, and 16 in the Middle East and Africa covering 71 areas.

She said that Filipino labor officers only mediate between the employer and employee and would most of the time act in favor of the employer or recruiter.

Bragas-Regalado said that this is not surprising as the government, particularly the POEA, already acts as the “illegal recruiter” in the homeland.

She said that the POEA should verify if data in the contract, such as the name and address of the employer, are true and complete. The problem is, she added, the POEA accepts a P.O. Box as an employers’ address making it difficult to rescue a distressed OFW.

She noted that most cases of violations of contract, maltreatment, missing OFWs and illegal recruitment were documented in the Middle East. Middle East countries are among the top ten destinations of OFWs.

The POEA, she said serves as a mere “recruitment agency of the government,” without regulatory functions.  The responsibility of verifying the contract and checking the legitimacy and capacity of the employer is passed on to private recruitment agencies.

The pre-departure orientation seminar (PdOS) is also mostly done by private agencies, and only a day before the departure. She added that the POEA merely gives seminars regarding bank transactions, savings and investments instead of informing OFWs regarding their rights, and what measures to undertake and the assistance they can expect in times of need. 

She said that the POEA receives incentives for collecting the $25 fee from OFWs. The POEA received P4 million ($76,679) in incentives last year, she added.

“Kung ganon, saan na napupunta ang ibinabayad ng mga OFWs na $25?” (Where does the $25 fee collected from each OFW go to?) she asked.

Poor services

While they remit billions every year, Migrante’s computation showed that for every P10 ($0.19) that OWWA spent, P8.80 ($0.17) was used for its administrative operations with only 0.60 cents left for the welfare of OFWs.

Worse, with the passage of the “Omnibus Policies of the OWWA,” or Board Resolution No. 038, on Sept. 19, 2003,  OFWs can avail of benefits they are entitled to for paying the $25 membership fee only up to the time that they have a live contract. Before the policy, OFWs were entitled to a lifetime membership.

Migrante criticized this policy for expanding the powers of the Board of Trustees of OWWA, who are all appointees of the President. With its expanded powers, the Board has the authority to decide the allocation of funds of the agency and has full control over OWWA transactions. 

The Omnibus Policies has also made the already inaccessible programs of the OWWA even more difficult to avail of, Bragas-Regalado said.

Repatriation of OFWs, which used to be the task of OWWA has been transferred to the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA). The DFA, she said, always justifies delays or inaction in repatriating OFWs in distress by claiming that, “walang pondo” (There are no funds available.) On the contrary, she argued, there is a $100 million emergency repatriation fund allotted every year.

“Sa totoo lang, hindi kami pupunta kung saan-saan kung itong gobyernong ito ay nagbibigay ng trabaho para sa amin,” (In truth, we would have not worked abroad if this government is able to provide opportunities for gainful employment locally.) said the migrant leader who worked as a domestic helper in Hong Kong for 13 years.

No right to take credit

Migrante said that the President has no right to take credit for the economy’s survival or for taking home with her the 134 OFWs pardoned by the king of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the 192 OFWs repatriated from Lebanon in her State-of-the-Nation Address (SONA).

“In the first place, dapat walang nakakulong o minamaltrato na OFW kung ginagawa niya ang trabaho niya,” (In the first place, no OFW should have been in jail or have been maltreated if only she has done her work well.) said Bragas-Regalado.

Migrant groups, with representatives from foreign groups, will be joining a massive protest action in Quezon City as well as regional mobilizations simultaneous with the President’s SONA on July 24. Bulatlat

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