Filipinos who build careers overseas frequently find that the diplomas and training they earned back home count for little once they arrive, a foreign affairs official told the Senate on Thursday, leaving many to accept work well below their level of schooling.
Assistant Secretary Anthony Achilles Mandap of the Department of Foreign Affairs described this as a grievance he hears again and again from Filipino communities scattered across different countries. “A familiar complaint among them is that they are unable to land jobs that actually match their qualifications. So they are forced to take on lower-paying jobs,” he told the Senate committee on foreign relations.
The remedy under discussion is the 2011 Asia-Pacific Regional Convention on the Recognition of Qualifications in Higher Education, or Tokyo Convention, which the panel took up as it examined whether the Philippines should sign on. The treaty is designed to build fair and transparent systems for recognizing higher education credentials across the Asia-Pacific, an arrangement its backers say would make it easier for Filipinos to study and work beyond the country’s borders.
Joining the pact, Mandap said, would give overseas workers a stronger footing to have their training formally acknowledged and to step into positions that reflect what they actually studied and mastered.
His own years in Canada gave him a close view of the problem. Filipino communities there had campaigned for a long stretch to win recognition of their credentials, and while the push earned in-principle support from Canadian authorities, it had not been carried through by the time his posting ended. “I think this will give it a good push for this thing to finally happen, for the greater economic empowerment of our OFW and our overseas communities,” he said of the convention.
Sen. Juan Miguel “Migz” Zubiri, who chairs the committee, said he would bring the concern to the plenary and make the case that a lack of accreditation is precisely what forces the gap between what Filipino workers can do and the jobs they are able to get.
