Overseas employment used to be one of the special services of the country’s Labor Ministry, now the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE), back in the early 1970s.
“The Philippines had a foud percent unemployment rate and a surplus in the labor force. The minimum daily wage back then was Php8/day and the US dollar exchange rate then was equivalent to Php7. So workers earn more than a dollar a day back then,” reminisced former Labor Secretary Marianito Roque during the recent BusinessMirror’s “The Blas F. Ople Forum on Philippine Overseas Employment: Past, Present and Future.”
That was the prevailing atmosphere, according to Roque, and the Philippines started experiencing the skilled labor force coming from American establishments, courtesy of the three refineries at that time, namely Caltex, Shell, and Standard Vacuum Oil.
There were many temporary workers in Vietnam and Guam, as Filipinos came and went and worked for American employers at that time with no work contracts. Travel agencies then served as employment agencies.
Rise of overseas employment program
The Overseas Filipino Workers program served as a stop-gap measure to siphon the surplus in the labor force, thereby minimizing the unemployment rate in the country. Roque said this and the prevailing situations gave rise to the Philippine overseas employment program.
In the process, more new labor markets were developed with the country sending vocational trainers to Papua New Guinea who eventually proceeded to Australia.
“Meanwhile, the country also sent a lot of Filipino professionals mostly in universities like doctors, nurses, teachers (especially those specializing in science and physics) to Nigeria,’’ he said.
“Iran was in boom in 1974 because of the presence of Americans. Most of the workers in Subic, Clark, Sangley Point were all taken in by American companies servicing the naval and air force bases in Iran. By 1976, about 40,000 Pinoys were working in Iran,” Roque recounted.
With Hong Kong starting employing Pinoys domestic workers, Austria started hiring nurses for the then municipality of Vienna. There were around 7,000 nurses during the 1970s in Austria who are now retired and are permanently living there, the former secretary said.
Eventually, Saipan had become a destination for Pinoy construction workers also because of American employers there.
Iran had an intended demand for household workers, too, at that time because the European companies employing Italians, Belgians, and French requested Filipino service and household workers to take care of their families while they were at work in Iran.
“With the overthrow of the Pahlavi Dynasty in 1979, the Europeans had to go home bringing their Pinoy workers with them. That started the service inflow in Europe especially in Italy. The seed of Filipino workers in Italy were the overseas workers in Iran,” Roque said.
Standards for overseas employment
The adoption of Presidential Decree 442 or The Labor Code of the Philippines in 1974 finally gave birth to the Philippine overseas employment program, Roque said.
“The Philippines became the first country in the world who was a source of migration to adopt and be strict with the labor standard to be followed to qualify for employing Filipino workers, with the following conditions: free travel to and from the worksite; free board and lodging; emergency medical and dental coverage; a guaranteed pay basic wage; overtime pay not less than the Philippine rate; workers compensation coverage; a grievance machinery where there is participation of the Philippine labor attache before such grievance is alleviated to the local court at the worksite; repatriation of workers for war, hostilities, accidental or natural death; and a guarantee of workers protection at no less than what is prevailing at the worksite,” Roque cited.
“Lastly, we were the only country with the employee enrollment system or the verification of employers and the authentication of employment contracts. Most of the above criteria mentioned above are still included in the Philippine Overseas Employment Authority’s criterion before allowing OFWs to work abroad.
There may be policy shifts in the 1980s and 1990s, consolidation of agencies for the OFWs, and other changes. But the fact remains that journalist-turned-politician Blas Fajardo Ople had championed the cause of the country’s OFWs.
Image credits: Blas Ople Policy Center and Training Institute