By JANESS ANN J. ELLAO
As March 30 nears, Filipinos, especially relatives of the three Filipino migrant workers who are set to be executed in China, are still hoping for a miracle: to be able to bring them back home alive.
By MARYA SALAMAT
Many hospitals are charging new nurses fees in exchange for work, training and experience, which are required for nursing jobs abroad. This offshoot of the government’s exploitative labor-export policy needs to stop, according to the Gabriela Women’s Party.
By CIELO FLORES
Candidates who signed the covenant commit to review and work to repeal existing laws that exploit OFWs and to propose new policies that will further protect the rights and welfare of Filipino migrant workers.
Press Release 21 March 2010 “The newly amended law for Migrant Workers and Overseas Filipinos Act (Republic Act 10022) as it introduces amendments to R.A. 8042, will only heighten and intensify the exportation of human labor as a primordial labor program of the government under the present Arroyo administration,” today said by an alliance of…
By JANESS ANN J. ELLAO
The regime of President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo changed the face of labor migration in the Philippines. It pursued its labor-export policy aggressively, begging receiving countries to accept more overseas Filipino workers. In the meantime, it shirked its responsibilities toward OFWs in distress, in many instances even becoming complicit in the abuse of overseas workers.
Apart from adding to the burden of those who seek job abroad, the Labor Export Policy bill now pending in Congress could mean that the government will no longer generate local jobs because it would be easier to deploy them to foreign countries.
Maricar Evangelista, 35, a mother of four children, left the Philippines to work as a domestic helper in Dubai. Her story of abuse is similar to the thousands of women migrant workers who have returned home after experiencing various forms of abuses from their employers.
BY BULATLAT A progressive legislator chided President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo for her ‘haste in deploying overseas Filipino workers to war-torn Lebanon and Jordan. On Wednesday, Arroyo, through Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita, announced the lifting of the deployment ban to Lebanon and Jordan. Gabriela Women’s Party Representative Luzviminda Ilagan described the move as “like sending cannon fodder.”…
Studies by the Confederation for Unity, Recognition and Advancement of Government Employees (Courage) and the International Seafarers’ Action (ISAC) Philippines Foundation, Inc. show that the government rakes in billions of pesos from mandatory exactions on prospective overseas Filipino workers (OFWs). BY NOEL SALES BARCELONA Correspondent MIGRANT WATCH Bulatlat Aling Rose (real name withheld upon request),…
Fourteen years after the enactment of the Migrant Workers and Overseas Filipinos Act of 1995 or RA 8042, the problems confronting OFWs remain the same and are even getting worse. Without urgent action from the government, at least 41 overseas Filipino workers in different parts of the globe stand to suffer the fate of Flor…
The more the economy is stagnant, the less its ability to create jobs, the more dependent government becomes on overseas labor deployment. BY THE POLICY STUDY, PUBLICATION AND ADVOCACY (PSPA) PROGRAM Center for People Empowerment in Governance (CenPEG) ANALYSIS Posted by Bulatlat If the state policy making and legislative agenda do not change course, the…