THE SENATE on Tuesday approved on third and final reading a bill that seeks to create a department for Overseas Filipino Workers (OFW).
Twenty senators voted yes to Senate Bill 2234 creating the Department of Migrant Workers which President Rodrigo R. Duterte had certified as urgent.
“This moment is for every Filipino abroad who has sacrificed so much for their family and our beloved country,” Senator Emmanuel Joel J. Villanueva, who sponsored the measure, said during the plenary session.
This is a chance “to change for the better the way our OFWs, our modern-day heroes, are recruited, repatriated and reintegrated.”
“We did conduct a very extensive research on this because we wanted to make sure that the purpose of the law of providing better service to our overseas Filipino workers would indeed be achieved by this piece of legislation,” Senator Franklin M. Drilon said during the session.
Under the measure, the agency will absorb the functions of the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration and will be tasked to protect the rights of migrant workers.
The department will create and enforce policies while regulating overseas employment and the reintegration of Filipino workers.
Mr. Drilon noted his amendment to rename the agency to the Department of Migrant Workers rather than the Department of Migrant Workers and Overseas Filipinos to limit its jurisdiction to overseas employment and labor migration.
This will also allow a separation of authority between the department and the Foreign Affairs department, he added.
Senator Ana Theresia “Risa” N. Hontiveros-Baraquel said the measure recognizes the rights of overseas Filipino workers regardless of status.
Under the bill, aid that migrant workers get from the government including retirement, death and disability benefits would not be cut, she said in a statement. — Alyssa Nicole O. Tan