The Trade Union Congress of the Philippines (TUCP) welcomes back President Ferdinand ‘Bongbong’ R. Marcos, Jr. from his fruitful trip to Saudi Arabia for the ASEAN-Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) Summit in Riyadh. “We laud the President for leading from the front in ensuring that the primary issues faced by our overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) are fully addressed. This includes settling the unpaid wages of more than 10,000 OFWs in Saudi and ending Kuwait’s suspension of the issuance of entry and work visas to Filipinos. Thanks to the President’s meetings with the Saudi and Kuwait monarchs, we can look forward to brighter days and better treatment of our workers without fear of abuse and harassment,” underscored TUCP President and House of Representatives Deputy Speaker Raymond Democrito C. Mendoza who served as chair of the House Committee on Overseas Workers Affairs (HCOWA) and steered the passage of the Department of Migrant Workers (DMW) Act during the 18th Congress.
As the largest labor center in the country representing workers across different sectors, including our OFWs around the world, the TUCP urges the adoption of the following concrete courses of action which should be incorporated in new and better labor relations in the Middle East:
REVIEW AND ENHANCE BILATERAL LABOR AGREEMENTS WITH SAUDI & KUWAIT. Joint Technical Committees between the Philippines as well as Saudi and Kuwait must be convened to hammer down and agree upon an enhanced Standard Employment Contract for Filipino Household Service Workers which will ensure the proper implementation and monitoring of clear-cut provisions that: (i) allow OFWs to keep their passports and contact devices; and (ii) specify their work, sleep, and rest hours alongside leave days, among others. The new and better bilateral agreement must be premised on the total abolition of the modern form of slavery called the Kafala system.
FULLY OPERATIONAL DIGITAL OFW COMMAND CENTER. A whole-of-government approach must be pursued to fast-track the establishment of a fully operational digital OFW command center that will serve as a one-stop shop for all OFW concerns, especially repatriation, rescue hotlines, and blacklisting system of non-compliant recruitment agencies and entities that are involved in human trafficking, among others.
REVIEW AND REFORM THE OFW DEPLOYMENT POLICIES. We urge the Government to seriously review and reform our OFW deployment policies by: (i) upgrading our capacity-building of OFWs so that they are better informed of their rights and avenues for complaints and requests for rescue; (ii) ensuring that help desks in our diplomatic offices are proactive and accessible to the pleas of our OFWs; and (iii) establishing a task force to comprehensively review what is weak and wrong about our deployment policy and recommend critical corrective measures. The most urgent concerns are spearheaded by the need to assess the conditions of government shelters for distressed OFWs, review and implement the fair and ethical recruitment action plan, and contemplate on deployment ban to nations that are yet to ratify International Labour Organization (ILO) Convention No. 189: Domestic Workers Convention of 2011 which the Philippines ratified in 2012.
“The TUCP stands ready to partner with the Marcos Administration as well as the Department of Migrant Workers (DMW), which we established as the single home and sanctuary for our millions of OFWs, to ensure the guaranteed fundamental rights and provide the protection that our ‘kababayang bagong bayani’ duly deserve for their unmatched sacrifice for a good life of their families and for their heroic contribution to our economic recovery and development through their significant remittances that remain one of the brightest sports of our national economy,” emphasized Deputy Speaker Mendoza.
