Digitalization of OFW processes a priority, says Department of Migrant Workers’ Ople
Besides digitalizing all processes involving OFWs, Ople said the DMW is also working closely with law-enforcement agencies in tracking human traffickers, given the new trends in illegal recruitment, which, she noted, is now being done mostly on social media. She also noted that increasingly, traffickers use more than one country to transit their potential worker-victims, so it becomes harder to track them.
DEPARTMENT of Migrant Workers (DMW) Secretary Susan Ople assured senators Wednesday the newly established agency is on track in its bid to “digitalize all processes” overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) are required to go through “so they do not need to line up repeatedly.”
Updating lawmakers at a hybrid organizational meeting of the Senate Committee on Migrant Workers on the creation of the DMW and its proposed legislative agenda, Secretary Ople said DMW was envisioned as “the primary agency tasked to protect the rights and promote the welfare of overseas Filipino workers.”
At the same time, Senator Raffy Tulfo, presiding over the hearing Wednesday, sought the assurance of the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) of help for distressed OFWs housed in shelters in various destinations abroad.
The new department was initialy established in the 18th Congress and signed into law on December 30, 2021, under Republic Act 11641 and took effect on February 3, 2022.
Secretary Ople, in her initial presentation, sought the senators’ support for the “most urgent priority” of her department to digitalize all processes, explaining that, “we are streamlining the processes” so that after labor attachés validate the papers of migrant workers, the POEA’s job becomes “just ministerial.”
“Our mandate is to really reach out to OFWs as the primary agency tasked to protect them,” she stressed.
Besides digitalizing all processes involving OFWs, Ople said the DMW is also working closely with law-enforcement agencies in tracking human traffickers, given the new trends in illegal recruitment, which, she noted, is now being done mostly on social media. She also noted that increasingly, traffickers use more than one country to transit their potential worker-victims, so it becomes harder to track them.
Ople likewise lamented the pitifully low, single-digit number of convictions in cases of illegal recruitment filed in the past several years.
Senator Tulfo, chairing the committee’s organizational meeting, sought updates on the creation of the new department and its proposed legislative agenda and priority bills.
Tulfo said the primary goal of the committee, which was created roughly two weeks ago, would be to uphold the implementing rules and procedures of Republic Act 11641 or the Act creating the DMW and to protect the rights of Filipino migrant workers in all stages of employment, recruitment, placement, deployment, termination and/or repatriation. “This committee will devote itself to the passage of laws that will make the process and the procedures of deployment, repatriation, and financial assistance streamlined and hassle-free, 100 percent automated or digitalized and most importantly, affordable for migrant workers,” Tulfo said.
Sen. Christopher Lawrence Go said Ople was “tailor-fit” to head the new agency, which he had pushed for in the 18th Congress, and credited lawmakers with finally enacting it despite their initial serious reservations that creating a new department would counter the stated goal of rightsizing the bureaucracy. “As one of the authors of the bill (creating the DMW), I will continue to support the DMW to ensure that the safety and welfare of our OFWs will be protected,” Go said, adding that the department’s mechanisms should be strengthened in combatting all cases of maltreatment and abuses of OFWs.
At the same DMW hearing, Sen. Robinhood Padilla gave Overseas Workers Welfare Administration (OWWA) chief Arnaldo Arevalo “Arnell” Ignacio a blue garb, in recognition of his dedication and hard work in ensuring the welfare of overseas Filipino workers around the world.
Padilla said in jest that Ignacio has been working so hard that he had yet to go home to “change the clothes he has been wearing since yesterday.’” He also hailed the great contributions of migrant workers to the economy. “They are contributing US$35 billion in our economy. In real sense, our migrant workers are our exports. We are exporting their skills. Therefore, it is important to protect our migrant workers,” the senator said in Filipino.