Kuwait video: The kind of action whose time has come

THE Philippine government has been treating our overseas Filipino workers like dirt, period. And that has been the story since the institutionalization of the OFW as the country’s economic savior during hard times and prodigious hard currency contributor during better times. on OFW-related stories prior to the creation of the POEA and the OWWA (some of them were stories

- ries of OFWs—a virtual narrative of suffering—was the dominant theme. To be fair, the OFWs’ lack of protection then was rooted not in a deliberate effort to leave them unprotected but something else, a question of priorities. Not that the government just turned a blind eye to their sufferings. It was a case of giving primacy to expanding the market, not giving adequate protection to our overseas workers.

The market was primary, human welfare was secondary. Of course, there was this routine

heroism of the OFWs. But it was mostly talk and empty words. How to employ more Filipinos overseas was the main concern.

What did change after OWWA and POEA? No much.

The institutions present in the host countries with the precise mandate of protecting Filipinos there—the embassies, the POEA and OWWA staffers—have been historically ignoring the “protection” component of their work to focus on market expansion, or networking with employers and job recruiters. Protecting Filipino workers in the various diasporas is not only a tough and demanding

- tive offered. In contrast, regular contacts with the employers and