Why this Christmas is a special one for OFWs
CHRISTMAS is undoubtedly a time we remember our Overseas Filipino Workers (OFWs) best. We recall how they pine for family, or see them headed home for the holidays at our crowded airports.
With that, many among the 2.3 million Filipinos working abroad are based in countries where Christmas holidays are not observed, or Christian observances and religious practices are illegal.
Many OFWs belonging to Catholic renewal movements share how they hold prayer meetings only in residences, careful to avoid complaints from neighbors who may be offended and report them to some kind of religious police.
Christmas must be worse for them. The inability to properly celebrate, or at least make the day a significant one for them makes them miss Christmas at home even more.
That OFWs bring home the bacon to their families and the economy is an oft repeated discussion. For many families, this makes Christmas special, more so when a parent is abroad. For the rest of us this contribution is valued at about 28 Billion dollars in 2017, an all time high, roughly equivalent to 10% of our current Gross Domestic product (GDP), which is about the same as agriculture. The Bangko Sentral expects even higher remittances in 2018.
New OFW-centered programs provide hope
Nonetheless OFWs can at least expect more programs, and opportunities due to important reforms in 2018.
The establishment of the OFW Bank will encourage savings and investments, while the institution of the Personal Property Security Act (PPSA), now allows “movable items” such as motor vehicles to be used as collateral for bank financing.
These new programs allow many OFWs who do not own real property but are still in the process of doing so to obtain vital financing via their movable assets such as motor vehicles as collateral to obtain the loans they need to start up business.
The OFW Bank and the (PPSA) are two important reforms expected to make earning and saving easier and more effective for our OFWs. This secures and expands their economic contribution and allows greater participation especially in areas where this can serve as an infusion into local economic activity. Many Micro Small and Medium scale businesses will definitely start up or expand as a result of these reforms. Jobs follow.
GLOBAL COMPACT ON MIGRATION IS A VICTORY FOR FILIPINOS
Apart from these, the approval last week at the United Nations of the Global Compact on Migration is a landmark achievement for many OFWs and migrant workers that work and live in a world where borders have lowered and the free movement of peoples are under threat.
In a well-applauded speech that explained the country’s vote for the compact, Foreign Secretary Teddy Locsin eloquently put forward the Philippine position that called for a greater respect for migrant rights as a moral imperative of nations:
“This is where sovereignty comes up against — not a challenge to its unlimited freedom to act — but to the moral imperative to live up to a standard of reciprocal decency in its actions. For one day a sovereign people may find themselves migrants as well with no country. ….certain standards are expected of it; and failure to meet them results only in self-condemnation.
And so at the GCM negotiations the Philippines proposed treating migration, as much a matter of migrants’ expectations, as of a state obligation to uphold a standard of decency in rites of migrant passage and arrival; welcome or rejection.”
This is a bold statement from a migrant country in a world where many nations have become averse to migrants. This boldness comes after the courageous handling by the Philippine government of its issues confronting Filipino migrant workers, such as the deployment ban to Kuwait. Such assertiveness on behalf of its migrant workers was never heard from a Filipino state.
In two years our foreign policy has built an ability to assert our migrant workers’ interests, though a lot will still need to be done. Other reforms at home such as the OFW Bank and the PPSA will definitely bolster their welfare and help secure their future.
May this be a great celebration of the Lords’ birthday, and for every one of you reading this. Merry Christmas!