“Do we really want to become the world’s employment agency?”
This was the question raised by Senator Juan Edgardo “Sonny” Angara, who urged the government to provide local employment and higher-paying jobs to Filipinos to dissuade them from working abroad.
Angara said majority of Filipinos prefer to work in the Philippines, but are discouraged by the lack of jobs and low pay.
“The cost of Filipinos working overseas is higher than we think,” said Angara, acting chairman of the Senate committee on labor, employment and human resources development.
He cited records from the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) which showed that Filipino victims of human trafficking totaled 1,135 in 2013, while the number of Overseas Filipino Workers facing the death penalty, mostly for drug-related cases, has reached a total of 88 as of March this year.
He said an average of 1,600 illegal recruitment cases were handled by the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA) from 2007 to
2011, while the Overseas Workers Welfare Administration (OWWA) handled an average of more than 50,000 cases on-site annually from 2009 to 2013.
“Our labor force grows almost one million every year, and this number cannot be absorbed by available jobs here in the country, forcing Filipinos to seek better-paying jobs abroad to support their families despite the risk of abuse and exploitation,” said Angara.
The senator recently filed a resolution calling for a review of existing labor laws and regulations.
While he commended the Aquino administration for developing reintegration programs that would allow returning OFWs to use their earnings for enterprise development, what would really make migration be a matter of choice and not a necessity, according to him, is providing higher-paying jobs in the country.
“We are pushing for the expansion of the Public Employment Services Office (PESO) to serve as job placement agencies in provinces and municipalities to help people find work amid reports that it takes up to two years for new graduates to get work,” he said.
He is also pushing for the passage of the Apprenticeship Training Act to provide young Filipinos with skills and access to employment, noting that a majority of apprentices are hired by the companies where they have their apprenticeship.
“Aside from job-generating programs, one way of ensuring higher wages is by amending our outdated tax system that overburdens our middle-income workers and promotes upward mobility and a just society,” said Angara, author of the recently enacted law raising the tax exemption cap on 13th month pay and other workers’ benefits.
Under the current system, which has remained unchanged since 1997, an employee who makes around P60,000 a month is already in the top tax bracket and is paying the same tax rate as millionaires and billionaires in the Philippines.
The ways and means committee chairman stressed that tax brackets should be adjusted to keep up with inflation and to make them more sensitive to current salaries of Filipinos.
“If we adjust the brackets, the tax rates of the working middle class will decrease and will result to a higher take-home pay that will hopefully bring our OFWs back home. This could incentivize our labor force to work and invest in our country, and more importantly, to be with their families,” he said.