A BICOLANO lawmaker has called on the Senate to consider passing its version of a House-approved measure seeking to broaden the government’s legal assistance available to Filipinos living or working abroad.
“Migrant Filipinos deserve all the legal assistance they can get from our government whenever and wherever they require such help, and Congress can help do that by writing new legislation to amend our laws that presently allows the DFA (Department of Foreign Affairs) and the DMW (Department of Migrant Workers) to provide only limited aid of this type to them at any time they need to protect their rights or run into trouble with the law overseas,” said Camarines Sur Rep. Luis Raymund Villafuerte, National Unity Party (NUP) president.
For this purpose, Villafuerte appealed to the senators to pass a counterpart measure of the House- approved Bill 9305.
A lead author of HB 9305, Villafuerte said the measure amends Section 26 of Republic Act (RA) 8042 or the “Migrant Workers and Overseas Filipinos Law of 1995” to expand the scope of the DFA’s Legal Assistance Fund (LAF) available to overseas Filipinos, in lieu of limiting such legal aid only to “consular assistance.”
He said that HB 9305 likewise amends Section 14 of RA 11641 or the “Department of Migrant Workers Act” of 2021 to similarly expand the range of legal services available to overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) under the DMW’s Agarang Kalinga at Saklolo Para sa mga OFWs na Nangangailangan Fund.