DMW to continue legacy of late Secretary Susan Ople

MANILA – The Department of Migrant Workers (DMW) has achieved major accomplishments, started by the late Secretary Susan Ople, in its first full year of operation.

Amid the many challenges, officer-in-charge Undersecretary Hans Leo Cacdac said the death of Ople in August had the biggest impact on the youngest government agency.

The DMW, however, is undeterred and will continue the legacy of Ople, who was a staunch advocate of overseas Filipino workers’(OFWs) rights.

“We confronted and hurdled the many challenges we faced in 2023 on a somber note with the passing of our dear secretary and were fully determined to carry on with her legacy as we’ve already started to do in 2023 fully determined to carry on with her legacy in 2024,” Cacdac sai d.

Ople founded the Blas Ople Policy Center (BOPC), named after his father who was a former Senate president and Labor minister, and established the One Repatriation Command Center in 2022 for faster government assistance for distressed OFWs.

To help safeguard the jobs of Filipino seafarers, the DMW forged international cooperations to enhance the global competitiveness of Filipino workers.

The DMW agreed to a continuing partnership with the International Labour Organization (ILO) and the International Organization for Migration (IOM) for safe and fair labor mobility and climate change resilience for OFW families and with the United Nations on the Defense of Philippine Compliance with the UN Convention on Migrant Workers or “Revalida”.

To sustain the continuous increase in the number of issued Overseas Employment Certificates (OECs), the DMW has 38 pending bilateral labor agreements and Memorandums of Understanding (MOU) with 25 countries. Of these, 18 are from Europe and the United States, 16 from the Middle East and Africa, and four from Asia and the Pacific.

In December 2023, the DMW launched its Japan desk to ensure the continuous protection of OFWs in Japan.

Meanwhile, bilateral agreements were also signed with Austria, which has a current vacancy of about 200,000 posts for foreign workers.

OFWs trapped in crisis situations in Sudan, Turkey, Kuwait, Syria, and Lebanon were repatriated and received assistance.