Concern for overseas Pinoys
SIX months before his six-year administration ends, President Rodrigo Duterte fulfilled another campaign promise he made during the 2016 presidential, congressional and local polls.
Last December 30, when the nation marked “Rizal Day,” Duterte signed Republic Act No. 11641 creating the Department of Migrant Workers and Overseas Filipinos (DMWOF).
“This is not only a campaign promise fulfilled, this is also a testament to the leadership of the Philippines when it comes to migration,” said Undersecretary Sarah Lou Arriola of the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA).
Arriola said a one-year transition period before the various agencies involved in ways to provide aid to overseas Filipinos would be brought under the umbrella of the DMWOF.
The Philippine Overseas Employment Administration, which is an attached agency of the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE), will serve as core agency of the new department.
To be absorbed by the DMWOF are DFA’s Office of Undersecretary for Migrant Affairs and DOLE’s Philippine Overseas Labor Offices (POLOs), the International Labor Affairs Bureau (ILAB) and the National Maritime Polytechnic NMP).
Others are the National Reintegration for OFWs under the Overseas Workers Welfare Administration and the Office of the Social Welfare Attache of the Department of Social Welfare and Development.
Since he assumed the top political post of the land on June 30, 2016, the outgoing Chief Executive has been championing the cause of our countrymen living or working overseas.
Note that the billions of dollar remittances of millions of Filipinos abroad, including our migrant workers, continue to prop up the country’s struggling economy.
The setting up of the DMWOF is seen to address the many problems confronting the army of overseas Filipinos, notably our OFWs who are the nation’s “modern-day heroes.”
