RIYADH, 27 May — Should Filipino migrant workers be made to pay the $25 OWWA fee once a year? Every time they leave for work abroad? Every time they sign a new contract? Or just once in a lifetime?

Labor Secretary Patricia Sto. Tomas yesterday said the OWWA Board of Trustees will have to resolve these questions amid an uproar over the fee.

In a luncheon dialogue with Filipino community leaders in Riyadh at the Marriot Hotel yesterday, Sto. Tomas said the proposal for the outright scrapping of the fee was not practical, considering that there many OFWs who need the benefits provided to OWWA members.

Under the current program of the OWWA, or the Overseas Workers Welfare Administration, a member is entitled to death benefits of from 50,000 to 100,000 pesos; burial expenses of P20,000; disability benefit of from P2,500 to P50,000; and medical reimbursement for accidents and work-related illnesses ranging from P2,000 to P10,000.

Members are also covered under the government’s reintegration program and loan assistance.

Sto. Tomas further noted that while some members may not be able to avail themselves of benefits accorded only to the “distressed” or those stranded in their place of work for various reasons, they are in a way helping their unlucky compatriots.

While the question about the mode of payment is being resolved, she said, OFW groups should come up with a list of what type of benefits they believe each member should get from out of the $25 contribution.

“That would help us with guidelines we have to put up at OWWA,” she said.

During the dialogue, community leaders asked the officials present to clarify the convoluted government system of milking the so-called bagong bayani or “new heroes.”

For instance, Alfredo Ganapin of e-Lagda Riyadh chapter said that while the memorandum issued by the OWWA and Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA) in the collection of the $25 fee made no mention the word “mandatory,” the tone of the memo is clearly mandatory.

Echoing the sentiment expressed by thousands of OFWs via the Internet, Ganapin said OWWA and POEA officials seem to be employing deception and intimidation in their bid to collect as much as they could.

Unrest over the fee had been building up since December when vacationing OFWs found to their surprise that they could not get the required overseas employment certificate (OEC) from the POEA unless they pay the $25 (or 1,275 pesos) fee, in addition to the P900 peso OWWA Medicare fee.

Balik Manggagawa OFWs who tried to protest were confronted with a memorandum signed by OWWA Administrator Wilhelmn Soriano and POEA Administrator Rosalinda Dimapilis Baldoz in late November of last year.

Someone pointed out that under the old structure, OFWs were made to pay only once for membership fee. Sto. Tomas admitted that the OWWA in 1995 thought of making payment of the membership fee on a contract basis because the agency’s fund had to be continually built up.

This was not carried out due to opposition from OFWs, she said. In 1999, the OWWA Board of Trustees again passed a resolution making the payment a yearly affair. Again, the resolution was not implemented.

Sto. Tomas said that the mishandling of the OWWA’s funds was a major problem, and that is what she had been trying to reform since she became labor chief.

Sto. Tomas and her delegation will also meet with community leaders in Jeddah tonight.