Below is a piece from Art ‘Popoy’ Los Banos, a seasoned PR professional and 23-year Dubai resident. In his commentary, he reflects on the recent presidential address and its lack of significant updates on the welfare of Overseas Filipino Workers (OFWs).
I was expecting a major announcement for Overseas Filipinos but what the president said were just updates from last year’s SONA such as the unpaid wages of our ‘kababayans’ (compatriots) in Saudi Arabia and the repatriations of our ‘kababayans’ from Israel, Gaza, Lebanon, and Yemen. The latter is a normal government SOP.
It seems that the Department of Migrant Workers (DMW) has lost the president’s ears, unlike when the first secretary, the late Susan ‘Toots” Ople, was still alive when at the first SONA the president said a mouthful about the new department.
Little is known about the department’s ‘Aksyon Fund’ or the Agarang Kalinga at Saklolo para sa mga OFW na Nangangailangan Fund which is intended to be used for legal, medical, financial, and other forms of assistance to OFWs, including repatriation, shipment of remains, evacuation, rescue, and any other analogous help or intervention to protect the rights of Filipino nationals.
The Philippines News Agency posted a story on July 4 that DMW Secretary Hans Leo Cacdac reported that nearly 1 billion pesos from the fund has been disbursed which has aided at least 52,000 workers in terms of legal and labor assistance and around 10,000 others provided with financial assistance. President Bongbong Marcos Jr. could have reported this and made us confident that the government is really for the welfare of Overseas Filipinos who have remitted 37 billion US dollars last year.
