THERE is a P100-million Emergency Repatriation Fund (ERF) for Filipinos working abroad who are faced with war, epidemic, or other widespread disaster or calamity. At least there was, and there should have been, on tap.
Administrator Marianito Roque of the Overseas Workers Welfare Administration (OWWA) said had this fund been available, the emergency repatriation of Filipinos from Lebanon would not have been an issue, but it has become a big one because Congress failed.
Now the tables are turned. Lawmakers have browbeaten the OWWA from pillar to post in the wake of the mass retreat from Lebanon of thousands of Filipinos. The OWWA was repeatedly slammed for alleged fund misuse, including bad investments and politics that are being blamed for the lack of money for the repatriation.
The law, said Roque, had mandated that Congress should replenish the agency its P100-million ERF every time it is used up, but that for at least a decade, Congress has failed to do so. The law he mentioned is Republic Act 8042 or the Migrant Workers and Overseas Filipino Act.
“Every year, we must submit a report to Congress of what was deducted [from] the P100 million, for replenishment, so that every year we always have a P100- million basket. But it was not replenished the past 11 years,” said Roque. “Every time we submit to Congress the requested budget for replenishment, it was not acted upon.”
He added that as a result, the government now owes the workers’ fund a total of P155 million, which had been used to repatriate workers in “regular” cases such as injury, death and contract violation.
But he was quick to add that in spite of the ERF lack, the agency is willing to extend more if the P500 million it has allotted as its share in the repatriation of 30,000 OFWs in Lebanon is not enough.
Created under the Marcos dictatorship, the OWWA serves as a trust fund of OFWs who pay $25 each for every contract they enter into. The agency’s total assets including available funds as of December 2005 stands at P8.677 billion.
The issue of where the OWWA funds went had been pursued by senators, but they were rebuffed by the refusal of Cabinet and other administration officials to testify in the Senate labor committee inquiry.
To make sure that Malacañang officials cannot use the same alibi and snub Monday’s resumption of the inquiry on the Lebanon evacuation plans, the Senate Committee on Labor and Employment has enumerated existing bills and resolutions likely to be crafted into law during the hearings, particularly those dealing with safe and quick removal of OFWs from crisis areas.
In a letter to Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita dated August 2, Sen. Jinggoy Estrada, Labor committee chairman, listed down over two dozen bills and resolutions filed by him and fellow senators, “all relating to our overseas contract workers.”
The Executive branch officials had said the inquiry has nothing to do with aiding legislation.---C. Jimenez, J. Cadacio, B. Fernandez, M. Gonzalez
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