A lawmaker on Tuesday said the new department dedicated to serving migrant Filipinos will streamline and speed up services for the country’s overseas workers, especially those in distress.
Camarines Sur Representative Luis Raymund Villafuerte said the newly signed law creating the Department of Migrant Workers (DMW) would help better track Filipinos abroad, especially those in distress, as it provides for information system that will serve as a database for all overseas Filipino workers (OFWs).
He noted that OFWs would no longer have to go from one government office to another to provide for their needs, highlighting that the new department would regulate overseas employment and the reintegration of Filipino workers.
“Government must make a much better effort in providing assistance and protection to OFWs, from recruitment to overseas employment, more so now with (the) upward trend in remittances as economies hiring migrant workers have started to recover from Covid-19 and are rehiring again,” he said.
He said OFW remittances have helped keep the economy afloat during the height of the pandemic and will continue to boost ongoing efforts to recover from this global health crisis.
Citing the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP), Villafuerte said personal remittances from overseas Filipinos rose by 4.8 percent to USD2.889 billion from USD2.756 billion in the same month last year as of August 2021.
“We owe it to our over 10 million modern-day Filipino heroes, who have helped keep our economy afloat amid all external and domestic challenges, to have a line Department in charge of protecting and advancing their interests, in keeping with the commitment to them of President Duterte,” Villafuerte said.
President Rodrigo Duterte signed before the end of 2021 the law creating the DMW, which will absorb the functions of the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA) and will be tasked to protect the rights of migrant workers.
The DWM is expected to benefit an estimated 2.2 million Filipinos abroad, based on the 2019 Survey on Overseas Filipinos released in 2020 by the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA).
Source: Philippines News Agency
