Directing OFWs to regular migration channels Philippines' ‘int'l commitment’ amid threats

Philippine authorities think the country did not let up in directing overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) to regular migration channels, this being a “commitment” to the non-binding Global Compact on Migration (GCM) by the United Nations.

A top official from the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) said the government has been steadily running its programs for OFWs to pass through regular migration pathways.

And amid “threats” of continued illegal recruitment, Undersecretary for Migration Affairs Eduardo Jose de Vega told an assembly last week that the country’s role in adhering to the GCM “is to go (for) regular migration” pathways.

His statement comes in the wake of last week’s repatriation of 125 Filipino workers allegedly trafficked to Laos. Last week also, the Department of Migrant Workers (DMW) closed a travel agency (Mandaluyong City) and a language center (Silang, Cavite) that had no licenses to send Filipino workers to Japan and Germany, respectively, while charging applicants exponential processing fees.

In a stakeholders’ consultation August 30 on the Philippines’ adherence to the GCM, De Vega said the country has been digitizing Apostille documents and the certificates issued by the Commission on Filipinos Overseas (CFO) for departing emigrants, students and Filipino spouses of foreigners.

De Vega also reported the country formed a task force to look at Philippine back door exits that trafficking syndicates exploit.

An example here is the “illegal” hiring of Filipino workers to Laos, with some 125 of them rescued and repatriated already. These workers were initially hired to be customer service officers, but were about to work for a cyber scam syndicate, DMW Undersecretary Bernard Olalia told the media last week.

These 125 Filipino workers went to Laos as tourists until they were directed to these cyber scam centers found at Laos’ Golden Triangle Special Economic Zone, located in Bokeo province.

De Vega added the Bureau of Immigration (BI) “newly-reorganized” its Immigration Protection and Border Enforcement Section (i-PROBES), even if former municipal mayor Alice Guo of Bamban, Tarlac was able to sneak out of the country recently.

These commitments to