April 10, 2006
Updated 08:35pm (Mla time)
Veronica Uy
INQ7.net
ADVOCACY groups for overseas Filipino workers are against President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo's order to transfer one billion pesos of funds from the Overseas Workers' Welfare Administration (OWWA) to a state-run remittance bank.
Rashid Fabricante of the Pusong Mamon Task Force said the OFW fund in OWWA was "being played around without the courtesy of consultation."
"This move is an insult to many unsung heroes, diverting our money without due consultation," he said. "This is our money, we only entrust it to OWWA to administer its use."
President Arroyo had announced that the Philippine Postal Savings Bank (PPSB) would be converted into the Philippine Overseas Postal Bank (POPB) to provide overseas remittance workers with a cheaper alternative to send home money. The overseas bank will charge one dollar per 400-dollar remittance. The conversion, projected to be finished in six months, entails infusion of one billion pesos from OWWA fund.
Fabricante dismissed the move as a "unilateral move," adding it has "no clear mechanisms as to its operations, ownership, and management…[using] OFW remittances as capital." "The government has no money in OWWA. It does not receive a single centavo from the General Appropriations Act," Ellene Sana, executive director of the Center for Migrants Advocacy said, adding the only OFW representative in the 12-member OWWA board is a presidential appointee.
She said the use and administration of the overseas funds have remained subject of an unresolved lawsuit. In a case pending before the Supreme Court, nongovernmental organizations, including her group, questioned the OWWA board's requirement for a 25-dollar membership fee before an overseas worker could avail of its services. "Regardless of whether they are documented or not, OFWs need to be served," Sana said. OWWA administrator Marianito Roque said the bank would serve as "reserved trust fund" for active members of the agency. "Once their two-year membership expires, it will no longer be theirs."
But Victor Barrios of the non-governmental organization Global Filipinos said the PPSB was already "bankrupt." Any plan to infuse OWWA funds into the bank as equity should first have an objective assessment of the bank's status and strategic plan. He said: "Would the proposed action be to the best interest of the OWWA fund beneficiaries?" "Many legal questions pending before the court remains unanswered, and here we are again, spending our money to resurrect the bankrupt bank," said Fabricante.
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