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Thursday, March 28, 2024

JV wants Legal Fund for OFWs

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SENATOR JV Ejercito is seeking to institutionalize and make available the Legal Assistance Fund for Overseas Filipino Workers from the time of arrest or charging until the trial proper, as well as during appeals.

Ejercito is pushing for this through his measure Senate Bill No. 157, which was tackled Thursday afternoon by the Senate Committee on Labor. 

“If it is true that there are more than 3,000 cases against OFWs, then let’s have a plan to resolve them and be prepared to provide legal assistance to the reported 9,000 OFWs in detention. Let’s also start saving the lives of around 88 OFWs reported by the Department of Foreign Affairs who are now on death row overseas,” said Ejercifo.

Ejercito said it was high time the government actually did something about this. 

“This Legal Assistance Fund will be for all those who have been brutally abused by their employers, physically and emotionally, those who have been raped and sexually assaulted, those who never got paid for their services and especially those who have been wrongly accused of crimes. This is for the victims of mysterious deaths who receive no justice at all,” he added. 

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Ejercito said for distressed OFWs, the government, through consular offices and embassies, should be their sanctuaries for help. 

As this developed, Senator Alan Peter Cayetano renewed his call anew for the abolition of policies that unnecessarily burden the country’s OFWs.

He specifically cited the Overseas Employment Certificate and the collection of terminal fees, the same policies that some 200 OFWs in Hong Kong raised when they picketed outside the office of the Philippine Consulate General over the weekend.

The protesters echoed the same sentiment that Cayetano shared in a live Facebook video after attending the first Legislative Executive Development Advisory Council meeting last Monday.

The protest staged by the United Filipinos in Hong Kong complained the procedure introduced by the Department of Labor and Employment for securing the OEC in order to earn a refund of the terminal fee led to a “chaotic system that caused missed flights, long queues, fixers, and unnecessary expenses.”

Cayetano said the continued inclusion of the terminal fee in airline tickets purchased by OFWs violated the spirit of the law that exempts the latter from its coverage, and the exemption process only compounded the situation for the OFWs.

“By law, migrant workers are exempted from paying the terminal fee. But since it is included in the ticket prices, they still have to line up to get refunds, which at times even causes missed flights,” he lamented.

“Let’s spare our modern-day heroes from these inconveniences. We need to ease their burdens by abolishing these unwarranted government policies and replacing them with seamless, convenient, and hassle-free systems. Let’s make our OFWs feel like VIPs,” Cayetano said.

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