Bello: Separate OFW dep’t may not be in line with gov’t thrust

Labor Secretary Silvestre Bello III. ROBINSON NIÑAL JR./Presidential Photo

Labor Secretary Silvestre Bello III on Tuesday said having a separate department for overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) may be unnecessary, despite President Rodrigo Duterte’s vow last April to establish one “in a few months.”

“If we create another bureaucracy, it’s no longer in line with the thrust of government to come up with a leaner government, ‘di ba?” Bello said in a Palace briefing.

Speaking before around 4,000 Filipinos in Bahrain last April, Duterte bared his plan to create a separate department which would attend exclusively to the needs of Filipinos living and working abroad.

But there are already two agencies solely devoted to address OFW concerns—the Overseas Workers Welfare Association (OWWA) and Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA)—preventing the need, said Bello, for the establishment of a separate OFW department.

“Sa tingin ko naman, if you strengthen ‘yung POEA and OWWA, they can service our OFWs very effectively,” Bello said.

In a previous news conference, he said that creating an OFW department might also defeat the aim of the government to have the overseas workers opt to work in the Philippines instead by providing more jobs here.

“The President is very conscious of the social implication of our countrymen and countrywomen going abroad to look for jobs, and so he would like to create more jobs in our country so that there will be no necessity for our countrymen to go abroad,” he told reporters. Winona Sadia, INQUIRER.net trainee/JE