MANILA, 5 May — Overseas Workers Welfare Administration (OWWA) chief Wilhelm Soriano wants the agency transferred to the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) and Foreign Secretary Teofisto Guingona Jr. says he Soriano made known his proposal in a speech during the OWWA’s recent 20th anniversary celebration, saying he was merely “echoing the clamor of millions of Overseas Filipino Workers (OFWs) and their families.
“I ask all of you now is the time for us to listen to the clamor of the many that for OWWA to be more responsive OWWA must now be placed under the able guidance of the Department of Foreign Affairs,” Soriano said.
Guingona answered by saying, “We appreciate what OWWA is doing and we will gladly accept.”
Offhand, Soriano said the transfer would require a mere executive order. Guingona said he would first ask the department’s legal minds to study the matter since there really exists a law giving the president a free hand to reorganize the executive department. He said he was not sure if such a transfer would be covered by that law.
Undersecretary Merlin Magallona, head of department’s the Office of Migrant Workers Affairs, told Arab News that “from the viewpoint of policy,” this was the best way to go.
He said under the one-country team approach, all welfare officials assigned to a certain country have to work together under the chief of mission there, in most cases, the ambassador or consular attaché who represents the DFA.
“The unifying factor there is if the members of the one-country team would be under the leadership, administratively, of the DFA,” Magallona said.
He added that “the benefits for unifying the one-country team abroad under the leadership of the ambassador is borne out by my own observation abroad. To me, the role of ambassador has changed, he has to be the leader of the Filipino community there not only in the conduct of bilateral relations with the host country but primarily the DFA has to move the interests of the OFW into the centerpiece of foreign relations.”
Soriano also said in an interview with Arab News that the OWWA has not studied this clamor as yet. He said he merely announced it because of some existing petitions being supported by some OFW groups.
He said many of those who made the appeal did not deal with the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE), to which OWWA is presently attached, but with either the OWWA or the DFA.
During the same occasion, Soriano railed at unnamed government agencies which he said were stripping OWWA of control over the programs and services to OFWs it now provides.
“We have to strengthen OWWA because a weakened OWWA is tantamount to neglect for the Overseas Filipino Workers and their families,” Soriano said.
One of the programs which might be removed from the supervision of OWWA is the Medicare program for OFWs, which is being lumped together with the medical plan for local employees.
