Noli lauds overseas employment support system
Vice President Noli "Kabayan" de Castro lauded the overseas employment industry which has expanded to meet most needs of Filipinos wanting to work abroad.
At a forum commemorating International Migrants Day Tuesday, de Castro echoed Commission on Filipinos Overseas Chairman Dante Ang when he said the overseas employment industry has grown from "merely a stopgap measure" to solve the unemployment problem in the early seventies.
"The CFO bears witness to the excellence of Filipinos overseas who have brought honor to our country and who continue to drive the Philippine economy forward through remittances, technology and skills transfer, and invaluable contributions to their host countries," Ang said.
He added that both the Department of Labor and Employment and the Overseas Workers Welfare Administration were looking for ways to expand the reintegration program for returning overseas Filipino workers.
Meanwhile, OWWA came under fire as two members of think tanks based in Washington DC, USA submitted a paper dissecting the agency’s structure.
Dovelyn Agunias of the Migration Policy Institute and Neil Ruiz of the Brookings Institution said they made OWWA the topic of their study because of the rising importance of temporary migration.
"The Philippines is a treasure trove when it comes to migration policy," Agunias said, adding that "this is by no means a performance evaluation of OWWA."
Ruiz added "OWWA is a useful template" for how governments should manage temporary migration.
However, the two stated in their paper that OWWA has its shortcomings, foremost among them the fact that there are only three OFW representatives on the 12 member OWWA Board of Trustees.
He said this should be more in view of the fact that there are OFWs in over 190 countries worldwide.
Furthermore, he said, "they (the members of the BOT) are all appointed by the President and all board meetings are off the record." He explained that OWWA could do with a lot more transparency.
OWWA Director Vivian Tornea said in defense that the three OFW representatives could in effect be expanded to five since the one labor representative and the other management representative were also from the OFW sector. She failed to mention that the management representative was a recruiter and the labor representative represented organized labor and not OFW labor.
She said most of the complaints of OWWA were unfounded and mentioned that the BOT had just approved a lowering of the dollar base rate on which most OWWA fees were pegged.
At a forum commemorating International Migrants Day Tuesday, de Castro echoed Commission on Filipinos Overseas Chairman Dante Ang when he said the overseas employment industry has grown from "merely a stopgap measure" to solve the unemployment problem in the early seventies.
"The CFO bears witness to the excellence of Filipinos overseas who have brought honor to our country and who continue to drive the Philippine economy forward through remittances, technology and skills transfer, and invaluable contributions to their host countries," Ang said.
He added that both the Department of Labor and Employment and the Overseas Workers Welfare Administration were looking for ways to expand the reintegration program for returning overseas Filipino workers.
Meanwhile, OWWA came under fire as two members of think tanks based in Washington DC, USA submitted a paper dissecting the agency’s structure.
Dovelyn Agunias of the Migration Policy Institute and Neil Ruiz of the Brookings Institution said they made OWWA the topic of their study because of the rising importance of temporary migration.
"The Philippines is a treasure trove when it comes to migration policy," Agunias said, adding that "this is by no means a performance evaluation of OWWA."
Ruiz added "OWWA is a useful template" for how governments should manage temporary migration.
However, the two stated in their paper that OWWA has its shortcomings, foremost among them the fact that there are only three OFW representatives on the 12 member OWWA Board of Trustees.
He said this should be more in view of the fact that there are OFWs in over 190 countries worldwide.
Furthermore, he said, "they (the members of the BOT) are all appointed by the President and all board meetings are off the record." He explained that OWWA could do with a lot more transparency.
OWWA Director Vivian Tornea said in defense that the three OFW representatives could in effect be expanded to five since the one labor representative and the other management representative were also from the OFW sector. She failed to mention that the management representative was a recruiter and the labor representative represented organized labor and not OFW labor.
She said most of the complaints of OWWA were unfounded and mentioned that the BOT had just approved a lowering of the dollar base rate on which most OWWA fees were pegged.
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