As the number of overseas Filipino deployments rises, President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. said it is his priority to ensure and provide a safe working environment for Overseas Filipino Workers (OFW) and forge bilateral labor relations with other countries.
“We are engaging with our partners in the international community to ensure a safe working environment for our countrymen. And as we do so, we are also putting in place responsive mechanisms for the social welfare, repatriation, and reintegration of our returning OFWs into the Philippine economy,” he said in his speech during his second State of the Nation Address (SONA) at the Batasang Pambansa.
“Our priority is to ensure that the principles of ethical recruitment, fair employment, and the safe and orderly migration of our people, are embodied in our agreements with other countries,” he also noted.
In 2022, the number of overseas deployments has increased by 62 percent.
The President said that several countries have signified interest to explore bilateral labor cooperation with the Philippines in the areas of healthcare, tourism, hospitality, engineering, construction, and information technology.
“Recently, we signed agreements with Singapore, Austria, and the province of Alberta in Canada,” he said.
According to Marcos, this is to ensure that the principles of ethical recruitment, fair employment, and the safe and orderly migration of the people, are embodied in agreements with other countries.
One resolved issue in his administration as his example is the deployment in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
He stated that 70,000 of our OFWs have already been deployed to Saudi Arabia for employment.
Additionally, he said that the unpaid salaries and other related claims of some 14,000 OFWs, who have been put out of work in Saudi Arabia during the pandemic, are now being processed.
“The Crown Prince of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia himself personally committed to me that the unpaid claims of Filipino workers would now be paid,” the president highlighted.
He added that the continued employment of some 50,000 workers and the deployment of many more Filipino seafarers aboard EU vessels, has also been assured.
“The lesson for us all is that our education and skills must always be attuned to the high, exacting, and constantly evolving global standards," Marcos said.
OFW remittances are still at historically high levels, confirming their contribution to the nation's transformational economic progress.
In 2022, OFWs contributed 32.5 billion dollars, or roughly 1.8 trillion pesos, to the Philippine economy.
