By Jovee Marie N. Dela Cruz & Samuel P. Medenilla
A DECADE ago, the amendment to Republic Act (RA) 8042 was enacted into RA 10022 on July 8, 2010. Those were different times. With migrant workers under pressure from health woes and employment problems in their host countries, government’s overseas employment policy deemed a temporary solution against unemployment is under scrutiny as the coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19) wreaked havoc on labor sending and receiving countries.
This as government data revealed more Filipinos seek jobs abroad.
Based on the initial deployment data from the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA) at least 460,264 Filipinos sought employment overseas during the first five months of the year. This number represents around half of the 870,015 deployed in the same period last year.
According to Makati Rep. Luis Campos Jr., only a few Filipinos are expected to seek or obtain new employment abroad this year, mainly because many businesses around the world are still shedding jobs.
Campos, a vice chairman of the House Committee on Appropriations, cited an example the recent announcement by a Dubai-based airline, “which employs many Filipinos,” that it would be cutting 8,000 jobs.
“Other businesses around the world that have dismissed as many workers as they could, have adopted a wait-and-see approach while the pandemic is taking its course and are thus not expected to rehire anytime soon,” Campos added.
Public health
LABOR officials attribute the steep decline in deployment figures to the community quarantine implemented by countries to contain the spread of Covid-19, which has now infected over 18 million people worldwide as of August 4.
Of these cases, 691,013 died from the disease, making it a major public health threat for almost all countries.
Filipinos abroad were among the victims.
As of Tuesday, the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) revealed 9,607 confirmed cases of Filipinos in 71 countries afflicted with Covid-19.
About 5,681 of them already recovered from the disease while another 3,233 are undergoing treatment. A total of 693 Filipinos were not as fortunate and succumbed to the deadly virus.
The Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, which is the top destination for overseas Filipino workers (OFWs), has the biggest concentration of Filipinos who were infected with Covid-19 with 6,785. Incidentally, the region also has the most number of Covid-related fatalities with 417.
Health experts said these cases are expected to continue to increase until a vaccine for Covid-19 is finally discovered and become widely used.
Retrenchment wave
COVID-19 also battered the economy of many countries as the limited movement of people halted the operations of businesses and arrested demand for goods and services.
The International Labor Organization (ILO) estimated that as many as 400 million workers will be displaced because of the pandemic.
The ILO has said that most of these affected workers are employed in industries hit hard by Covid-19: accommodation and food services; wholesale and retail trade; real estate, business and administrative activities; and, manufacturing.
The Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) said the pandemic has already affected the employment of at least 3.2 million local workers. Of these figures, 141,958 were permanently displaced.
As of July, Labor and Employment Secretary Silvestre H. Bello III said the pandemic also displaced or reduced the working hours of at least 400,000 OFWs.
Of the Covid-affected OFWs, 122,369 were repatriated by the Department of Foreign Affairs and DOLE, and given assistance by the Overseas Workers Welfare Administration (OWWA) and other concerned agencies.
OWWA funds
THE mass repatriation has put considerable strain on the government’s existing mechanism to help OFWs.
Last month, the OWWA warned that its P18.7-billion trust fund is in danger of being exhausted because of the mounting expenses in providing food, accommodations during quarantine and transportation services for the affected OFWs.
The OWWA said it already spent over a billion of its trust fund this year for its Covid response. The agency expects expenses to increase once it launches in the third quarter of this year a P2.5-billion assistance and reintegration program for the affected OFWs.
To help pay for these programs, the Department of Budget and Management (DBM) allocated another P5 billion to augment of OWWA’s existing funds.
With the fresh infusion of funds, OWWA administrator Hans Cacdac said they are now targeting to provide aid to 250,000 OFWs this year.
The labor official said this may include providing cash aid to those who did not benefit from the labor department’s Abot Kamay ang Pagtulong (Akap) program. This program provides Covid-affected OFWs a one-time cash aid of P10,000 (around $200) each.
Last Tuesday, the DOLE reported it has already used P2.324 billion, which benefited 226,714 beneficiaries, of the P2.5-billion budget for the program.
The DOLE is requesting for additional funds to cater to the remaining 11,543 OFWs, who also qualified for AKAP but will not get cash aid because its cash pool is running empty.
Trickled remittances
THE reintegration services will be crucial to ensure returning OFWs would be able to integrate productively in the country’s local jobs sector and minimize the impact of the expected decline in OFW remittance this year.
The Asian Development Bank (ADB) estimated remittances, which serve as one of the main sources of dollar reserves of the country, could drop by as much as 20.2 percent this year, affecting 8.4-percent recipient households.
The DOLE, however, has made a bleaker projection, saying remittances could decline by as much as 30 percent to 40 percent.
Aside from affecting the country’s finances, Labor Assistant Secretary Dominique R. Tutay said jobless OFWs will form part of the country’s already rising local unemployment.
“It depends whether or not they will actively participate in the labor market and what the outcomes would be,” Tutay said. “While we hope that employment situation recovers fast, it may not be achieved very soon due to the current pandemic situation.”
Tutay said they plan to hold this month an online jobs fair to provide alternative employment opportunities for displaced OFWs.
The April round of the Labor Force Survey by the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) showed there were 7.3 million unemployed workers.
Based from its own job displacement report, DOLE said the lockdown measures have already affected the employment of 3.2 million workers. About 141,958 of these were permanently displaced by 6.843 establishments.
Easing restrictions
NOT all was bleak, according to Campos, as many Filipino migrant workers performing “essential” or “critical” services managed to keep their jobs amid the impact of anti-Covid measures, like lockdowns, by labor-hosting countries.
“They are mostly in healthcare, finance, merchant shipping and household services,” Campos said.
The easing of restrictions of lockdowns by labor-hosting countries also proved beneficial for aspiring OFWs, especially those with already verified employment contracts. The easing allowed them to still move to and from the country during quarantine period.
However, their deployment remained limited because of the reduced operation capacity of the POEA as well as recruitment agencies within quarantined areas.
Furthermore, the government also temporarily banned the deployment of medical workers for the duration of the Covid-19 crisis to ensure the country will have a sufficient pool of medical professionals, who could assist in its measures for the pandemic.
POEA administrator Bernard P. Olalia also noted there was a “significant decline” in the job orders for OFWs in previous months as countries temporarily closed down their borders to foreigners because of Covid-19.
BusinessMirror tried since July to get the latest job order figures from the POEA to verify Olalia’s claims, but the agency hasn’t replied to this newspaper as of press time.
Crisis pre-Covid
STILL, Olalia said last month they have observed a slight recovery in the number of deployed OFWs, particularly those in the sea-based category with the resumption of operations of some cruise ships abroad.
However, Migrante Chairman Joanna Concepcion said it may take years before deployment figures could return to pre-Covid period levels.
“The Middle East region, where a significant percentage of our temporary migrant workers are deployed each year, was already facing an economic crisis even before the pandemic,” Concepcion told the BusinessMirror.
“Companies were already executing mass layoffs of workers, affecting our OFWs. OFWs who work there would share that many OFWs were being replaced with migrant workers from Africa because they would accept cheaper wages,” she added.
Based on preliminary data from the POEA, the number of deployed OFWs started to decline again in 2019, when it dropped to 1.1 million from 2.09 million in 2018.
Tinkering with contract
WITH the expected gradual increase in the deployment figures in the coming months, both the recruitment industry as well as migrant stakeholders raised concerns regarding the sufficiency of the existing employment contract of OFWs during the time of Covid-19 pandemic.
In a position paper submitted to POEA on June 2, the Coalition of Licensed Agencies for Domestic and Services Workers (Clads) together with five other recruitment agencies, appealed to the POEA to allow changes, through a new issuance, in the employment contract even while OFWs are still abroad.
Currently, the alteration of an employment contract of an already deployed OFW is prohibited under the 2016 POEA Revised Rules and Regulations.
Among the provisions that Clads want to be reflected in the employment contract is that an OFW must abide by the health safety policies of the host country and not be entitled to salaries while on quarantine except when he/she is required to work from his/her home and/or quarantine facility.
They also requested that the OFW must be allowed to “request his/her employer to utilize his/her leave credits, if available, while on quarantine.”
“We cannot overemphasize that requiring the foreign employers to pay the salaries while in quarantine will increase the cost of employing an OFW. Ultimately, we will lose our competitive advantage against our Asian neighbors,” the recruitment organization said in their 5-page letter.
Opportunities missed
TO justify these recommendations, the recruiters cited DOLE’s Labor Advisory 17 series of 2020 or the Guidelines on Employment Preservation upon the Resumption of Business Operations.
The advisory allows employers and their employees to “modify wage-related benefits specified in their individual employment contracts” and engaged in alternative work schemes “to prevent displacement of workers.”
Recruiters pointed out that it is in the best interest of OFW for the implementation of these arrangements since their foreign employer can fire them on account of the pandemic.
“The displacement of OFWs due to the pandemic is a force majeure for which an OFW has no recourse against the foreign employer and the LRA (local recruitment agency),” the Clads said.
However, they noted that employers must pay the OFW his/her salaries for the hours worked during the quarantine.
“The adoption of the proposed measures will ease the financial burdens of the foreign employer who are likewise impacted by the pandemic and assist us in finding employment opportunities for our OFWs,” the recruiters said.
Foreign employers
MIGRANT stakeholders rejected the proposal of recruiters to allow foreign employers to make changes in the employment contract of OFWs, which could include their transfer to other employers.
“We have numerous experiences of our migrant domestic workers who were being sent from one employer to another and, in some cases, even being sold by their previous employers,” Center for Migrant Advocacy Executive Director Ellene Sana said in an online forum on July 24.
“Our point here is [the government] should not allow proposals [that] we think will be subject to abuse,” Sana added.
Erwin Puhawan, a paralegal officer with Kanlungan Centre Foundation Inc., agreed with Sana in raising concern over the risk of any changes in the employment contract of already-deployed OFWs.
Puhawan noted that the act, “which is currently illegal and called ‘contract substitution,’” is already the most common recruitment violation prior to the pandemic.
“If we will give the recruitment agencies and foreign employers this kind of power, this will be greatly abused,” Puhawan said.
Both Sana and Puhawan are included in the joint position paper submitted by nine migrant advocates and labor groups to the POEA in response to the letter sent by Clads and the recruiters.
Worker’s burden
IN their joint position paper, the migrant advocates also opposed the proposal of the recruitment industry that OFWs not be paid during quarantine.
They said this violates the provision of the UN “Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration,” which prohibits “recruiters and employers from charging or shifting recruitment fees or related costs to migrant workers.”
“It is hard to believe that employers, who consciously decide to hire migrant workers, have not anticipated such additional costs. Further, if the employers are not to shoulder the cost of quarantine, it will fall on the workers themselves,” the migrant advocates said.
They said POEA’s approval of the suggestion of the recruitment industry will place an additional burden for OFWs since quarantine has become a mandatory requirement in the ongoing Covid pandemic.
Advocates said that instead of the additional burden, OFWs should even be given additional protection through their employment contracts, which should now guarantee they will have safe workplaces and accommodations once deployed.
They said the new employment contract should also ensure an OFW will be provided treatment and still be paid salaries if they get infected with Covid-19.
Studying proposals
OLALIA said the proposal submitted by the recruitment industry and the migrant advocates are currently being studied by a technical working group (TWG) created by the POEA.
Olalia told BusinessMirror this TWG “is now consolidating the inputs if all the sectors and recommendation will be made to come out with a policy.”
He said they will focus on the legal issues raised by both parties.
As of Wednesday, the POEA chief said the TWG has yet to come out with its recommendation on the new employment contract on labor standards for OFWs during the pandemic.
He noted the policy proposal will be implemented either through issuance from DOLE or the POEA.
Right time
CAMPOS said now would be a good time for Congress to pass the bills “that we have introduced to assure Filipino migrant workers and their families here superior protection and a higher standard of living and to enable the country to take full advantage of the economic benefits of their cash remittances.”
He said he already filed House Bill (HB) 1433 further amending RA 8042 or the Migrant Workers and Overseas Act, as amended by RA 10022.
Campos said he filed the bill to strengthen the standard of protection of the welfare of migrant workers by criminalizing the practice of “decking.”
The lawmaker said “decking” is a practice that requires overseas Filipino workers to go first to an office for registration for their pre-employment medical examination and then being farmed out to a selected clinic located elsewhere; “an invention of unscrupulous and greedy elements.”
“It is a lucrative practice as the OFW has to pay the registrar or ‘decker’ an amount more than double the fee charged by a medical clinic,” Campos said.
“This practice has directly contributed to the establishment of monopolies in the medical examination of OFWs, in the process increasing pre-employment cost shouldered by the employers and workers,” Campos added. “This practice also violated the guaranteed rights of workers to choose from among government-accredited medical clinics.”
The bill defines and criminalizes the practice of decking. It also clarifies that those who imposed, established, managed and participated in decking are committing illegal recruitment and these acts would be meted with appropriate penalties and sanctions.
Initiatives
MOREOVER, Campos said he is also pushing for several bills protecting the country’s migrant workers.
These bills include HB 1439, creating the Department of Migration and Development (DMD), also known as the Department of OFWs, which no less than President Duterte asked Congress, during his 2019 State of the Nation Address, to pass.
Other bills filed include the following: HB 1435 (“Enhancing On-site Protection for OFWs”) by establishing a registration and monitoring system in all Philippine foreign posts; HB 1429 (“Creating the OFW Bank”); and, HB 1440 (“Providing Incentives for OFWs and Filipinos Residing Overseas to Invest and Establish Businesses in the Philippines”).
“The new DMD is particularly important to enable the government to concentrate on providing highly improved services to Filipino migrant workers,” Campos said.
Going digital
ACCORDING to Campos, they have seen how the DOLE, between April to June this year, “was overwhelmed by simultaneous appeals for help from distressed Filipino workers here at home and abroad, leaving many of those overseas neglected and abandoned.”
Campos said the DFA was also hard put scrambling sweeper flights just to bring home stranded Filipino migrant workers.
“As to the proposed OFW bank, we envision it providing low-cost remittance services and small business loans to Filipino migrant workers and/or their families here,” he said.
“We also want the bank to provide every departing Filipino migrant worker with a free international debit card and free access to Internet banking facilities,” Campos added.
The lawmaker said that through debit cards and access to online banking, Filipino migrant workers would be able to receive emergency cash assistance from the Philippine government and transfer money to mobile phones or virtual wallets.
Besides, he said, the physical distribution of cash assistance by Philippine Overseas Labor Offices “is difficult and prone to delays and/or corruption.”
“Between April to June, tens of thousands of Filipino migrant workers were marooned around the world with little or no access to Philippine government support,” Campos said.
“We even had cases wherein Filipino workers on international cruise ships were unable to send money to their families here at home for two or three months,” he added.
Due to severe travel restrictions, Campos said their vessels were barred from docking at any port. They could not disembark and send money, “yet, they had internet access on their ships while they were isolated.”
House bills
HOUSE Committee on Labor and Employment Chairman Eric Pineda of 1-Pacman partylist said the government is doing the best it can for the OFWs given the pandemic.
The “DOLE already ran out of funds. We are doing all we can to ensure that DOLE is well funded so that the department may be able to address the problems faced by our modern heroes,” Pineda said. The lawmaker cited the P1.3-trillion “Accelerated Recovery and Investments Stimulus for the Economy” bill, which provides aid. He also cited the P1.5- trillion “Covid-19 Unemployment Reduction Economic Stimulus” bill, which proposes job creation to address the unemployment problems caused after the lockdowns.
According to Pineda, the government is continuously implementing the provisions of the Migrant Workers and Overseas Act to protect all Filipinos aboard.
“The provisions of the law have not been suspended. The government is just implementing measures to protect the health of its citizens by imposing travel restrictions. Many government offices have been operating on a skeletal work force, making it difficult to address all problems in a timely manner, as we also need to consider the health of government workers,” he said.
Pineda said the Lower House has passed the bill creating the Department of Filipinos Overseas and Foreign Employment. He believes the creation of the department will streamline procedures for assistance to OFWs.
He said he has also filed a bill to amend RA 10022 to mandate every OFW to be insured “as the current law only requires first-time OFWs to be insured.”
Pineda added the bill proposes that even the “balik-manggagawa” [returning OFWs] will be covered by insurance, which will address expenses brought about by unforeseen events, including pandemics.
Transportation costs
MEANWHILE, Marino partylist Reps. Sandro Gonzalez and Macnell Lusotan are pushing for the passage of a bill extending government assistance to repatriated OFWs affected by the imposition of community quarantines and lockdowns by labor-hosting countries.
The lawmakers have filed HB 6778 to provide for the “domestic repatriation” of migrant workers who want to go to their hometowns to find jobs.
The lawmakers said that after the worker has been repatriated to the Philippines, the amended RA 8042 and the POEA Rules on Overseas Employment of OFWs are silent about the transport of the worker and his personal belongings back to his hometown, “despite the fact that a large number of OFWs come from provinces.”
“We must consider that in cases of repatriation, the OFW was not able to finish his contract and that most likely he has no savings to use to cover the costs of his transportation back to his family, thereby adding more suffering to his already miserable state,” the bill said.
Under the bill, the repatriation of the worker and the transport of his personal belongings to his hometown shall be the primary responsibility of the agency which recruited or deployed the worker overseas. All costs attendant to repatriation shall be borne by or charged to the agency concerned and/or its principal.
Starts, re-start
CAMPOS said he believes that lingering global air travel restrictions are bound to temporarily discourage large-scale labor migration.
“It remains unclear when foreign labor markets will recover. This all depends on how the pandemic will take its course, and how quickly industries will find ways to keep on running,” he said.
In any case, Campos said the world has become a “global village” and countries around the world have become interdependent on each other not just for raw materials and finished goods, but also for human resources and/or labor supply.
“Thus, once the global economy starts to pull through, industries abroad should start hiring foreign workers again, including Filipinos,” he said.