AN economist-lawmaker said that it may take two to three years before the country can return to normal levels due to the negative impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic.
House Committee on Ways and Means Chairman Joey Sarte Salceda explained that among the major negative impacts of the Covid crisis that could persist and inflict structural damage on the economy is the loss of income and aggregate demand, and remittances of almost $5 billion per year.
“We’re highly exposed because some of our best-paid OFWs are sea-based, and that relies on tourism and global trade, which would suffer lingering effects within the next 24 to 36 months,” he said.
“Consensus estimate is that some 230,000 to 250,000 OFWs will be displaced or dislocated from their jobs. We did a value chain analysis and we find that that is in fact a net number. In our value chain analysis of major economies and sectors where there are OFWs, we found that up to 420,000 may come home to the Philippines at some point within the next six months, with 170,000 to 180,000 of them coming home because of temporary circumstances. They will return once the situation is over,” he added.
Salceda said the country’s overseas workforce is significantly exposed to what the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has now declared to be a global recession, as up to 25 percent of total remittances at any given time come from sea-based work in trade-heavy and tourism-related sectors. Transborder travel also exposes them to Covid-19 infection.
Usual estimates put the number of overseas Filipinos at 10 million.
Mandatory testing
Meanwhile, Salceda is proposing a strategy to prepare the country for the arrival of some 420,000 OFWs in the months during or immediately after the peak of the coronavirus health emergency in the Philippines, and to prevent a second wave of infections prompted by those who may come from heavily infected countries and workplaces.
According to Salceda, at least P20 billion in funding under the Bayanihan to Heal As One Act must go to the Overseas Workers Welfare Administration (OWWA) and the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) programs for OFW welfare.
“We have to prepare to process, quarantine and test as many as 420,000 OFWs. We have constraints but we need to do this,” Salceda said.
New wave of vectors
“If we cannot test them, that is potentially a massive wave of vectors that, if they infect others, could overwhelm the health-care system. So they will need to be tested and isolated,” Salceda said.
Salceda is also proposing that the Inter-Agency Task Force (IATF) on Emerging Infectious Diseases adopt a unified protocol for handling returning OFWs.
“Let’s come up with a quarantine protocol. As soon as they arrive, they have to declare in a detailed manner the places where they came from within a period of time. You test them afterward. As soon as they accomplish that truthfully, you give them cash, outright, as assistance for themselves and their families. You place them in some place for quarantine, or you send them home but you alert the police and the local authorities, down to the barangay, so that the 14-day quarantine can be imposed,” he said.
“You essentially consider them persons under monitoring,” Salceda added.
Earlier, TUCP Party-list Rep. Raymond Democrito C. Mendoza deplored the apparent lack of rapid-response protocols within DOLE and its attached agencies, and a massive failure of coordination with the task force, the Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG), and LGUs for the repatriation, quarantine and post-quarantine and financial assistance for OFWs.
Mendoza was reacting to reports that repatriated OFWs are being denied accommodation and local government units are turning them away.
Mendoza noted that DOLE reported that as of last count, at least 3,169 OFWs were affected worldwide, with about 1,560 OFWs displaced or forced to go on leave due to Covid-19. About 203 OFWs tested positive of Covid-19 while three have died, according to the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA).
“It is appalling that OFWs sleep on the streets while government agencies are taking their sweet time to set up coordination protocol,” Mendoza said. “A simple dedicated front desk for repatriation and coordination with the IATF could have been established early on,” Mendoza added.
Mendoza also called on local chief executives to allow entry of returning OFWs.
Image credits: Bernard Testa