MANILA, 26 May 2004 — Non-government organizations are calling on Overseas Filipino Workers to provide evidence that they are being forced to pay $25 each as membership fee by the Overseas Workers Welfare Administration (OWWA).

OFW rights campaigner Ellene Sana said the evidence is needed in the complaint filed by the Philippine Migrants Rights Watch (PMRW) seeking to stop OWWA from imposing the fee and revising its policies. The complaint said the mandatory fee and change in policies violated the Philippine Constitution and existing laws.

“We trust that together we can pull through this campaign on OWWA — the court case is just one of the many avenues to address our clamor for transparency, accountability, the need for restructuring of OWWA — all for the purpose of making it live to its name of being a responsive, friendly and effective government welfare agency for OFWs,” Sana said in an e-mail to various overseas Filipino groups.

The $25 fee was supposed to be collected from employers but OFWs have been paying the fee because of the alleged refusal of employers to do so. OWWA went a step further and made the payment of the fee mandatory to those leaving for overseas employment.

Along with PMRW in its campaign to make the controversial welfare agency shape up are the Scrap the OWWA Omnibus Policies (SCOOP) Coalition and the Center for Migrant Advocacy (CMA).

One of the first to respond to Sana’s call was a finance executive in Riyadh, who said he had found out that OWWA had been falsely claiming on the receipts for the $25 membership fee that employers were paying the fee for their OFW employees.

“I felt very bad when I read what was written on the OWWA receipt. I really felt robbed, cheated, and made a fool of,” Francis Oca said in an e-mail circulated to fellow OFWs and Philippine officials.

“On the box provided for the payor’s name is written the name of my company ... and in the space for “nature of collection” is written: Welfare Fund Contributions (stamped) for: Oca, Francisco,” the e-mail said.

He added: “Now we know why OWWA insists that it is the employer, not the OFW, who is paying the contributions.”

He then urged all OFWs returning to their jobsites to “make sure that it is your name written in the payor’s box and not the name of your company.”

“Let us put a stop to this fraud,” he said.

Oca also asked top officials in Manila not to try and cover up the “fraud.”

“If (Labor) Secretary (Patricia) Sto. Tomas and President (Gloria Macapagal) Arroyo are reading these exchanges, they should start kicking the ass of whoever masterminded this maneuver,” he said.

Sto. Tomas chairs the Board of Trustees of the OWWA, whose administrator, Virgilio Angelo, is vice chairman.

Sana said documents similar to Oca’s are exactly what is needed to support the case filed before the Pasay Regional Trial Court. She said the PMRW needs proof of payment of the $25 fee, either as a direct payment to the OWWA through its offices onsite (abroad), through the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration, or through the recruitment agency concerned.

“For each of the three categories above, we would need witnesses, affidavits and OWWA receipts,” Sana said.

She said the affidavits would have to be drafted in Manila and would then have to be authenticated by the concerned Philippine Embassy. She said the PMRW was also asking that OFWs send facsimiles of their OWWA payment receipts.

In the civil suit, the PMRW questioned the provision in the review policies, which limits membership in OWWA to currently employed OFWs and beneficiaries only to members. Previously, direct families of OFWs and “returned OFWs” were eligible for OWWA benefits.

“OWWA was created by law to provide welfare services to all Filipino overseas contract workers and there is no law which limits OWWA services to its member contributors only,” the complaint read.

Sto. Tomas earlier justified this move by saying providing services to families of OFWs was a drain on the fund so that OWWA no longer had funds to serve its real members.