DFA, UN launch program to help OFWs displaced by COVID-19

Published December 16, 2020 8:19pm By MICHAELA DEL CALLAR The Department of Foreign Affairs and the United Nations on Wednesday launched a program aimed at helping tens of thousands of displaced Filipino workers who were forced to return home due to the global pandemic. Called Bridging Recruitment to Reintegration in Migration Governance or BRIDGE, the program seeks to address the impact of COVID-19 on overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) through reintegration frameworks and services to be implemented by the Philippine government. “BRIDGE aims for a pronounced positive effect on human mobility. And that will be done by translating our four-decades worth of experience, good and bad, into improved migration policies and practices,” Foreign Secretary Teodoro Locsin said in a speech during the program’s virtual launch. Since the start of the pandemic early this year, the DFA has brought home around 300,000 Filipino migrant workers from various parts of the globe. Another batch of 80,000 displaced workers are expected to return to the country by year-end, Locsin said. Despite the challenges, Locsin said the Philippine government, which has dealt with mass repatriations and evacuations of Filipinos in the past in conflict-torn states, successfully managed to bring home thousands of distressed workers. “When the pandemic came, our existing frameworks for migrants paid off,” he said. “You cannot argue with facts, with actual best practices.” “I wouldn’t say a perfect model. We have our human traffickers; our manning agencies that throw ‘man’ overboard. But we’re better than a lot of others.” Among the objectives of BRIDGE, Locsin said, are ensuring decent work and facilitating safe return and reintegration. BRIDGE, he added, would also give emphasis on eliminating gender biases as it seeks to equalize improved opportunities for all migrants regardless of gender. Under the BRIDGE program, Locsin said strong cooperation among the government sector, private recruitment agencies and civil society partners is needed to increase national capacity for regular migration with decent work and wages. Joining the DFA and the UN are the Department of Labor and Employment and its attached agencies, OFWs, including women and migration-affected communities and civil society organizations. — BM, GMA News

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