MANILA, 19 December 2007 — Even as the Overseas Workers Welfare Administration (OWWA) affirmed its decision to reduce the membership fee of Overseas Filipino Workers to P1,050 from P1,275, restive OFWs said the government should do more by scrapping the fee altogether.
They also revived their campaign for the government to provide OFWs a fixed preferential exchange rate of P50 to the greenback, saying that the dollar’s continuing decline has cut their income by about 25 percent.
The signature campaign to signify their demands has been snowballing in the Middle East where some 2 million Filipinos work.
The petition formulated four months ago is spreading like wildfire through the Internet.
OFW groups lambasted the OWWA for “overcharging” them even though the value of the peso against the US dollar had been steadily going up in the past two years.
The P1,275 fee being collected by the OWWA for each Filipino leaving for work abroad is based on the P51:$1 rate. The agency is authorized by law to extract $25 from each worker every.
OFW advocates said the demand for the scrapping of the fee was not unjustified.
In fact, they said, the “abolition” of the $25 annual membership fee is specified under Republic Act 8042, the Magna Carta for overseas workers.
They also cited LOI 537, which states that “in no way shall the above fees be charged or collected from the worker.”
They also criticized the OWWA Omnibus Policies for not serving the interest of the OFWs because it contains “erroneous provisions” that were haphazardly written and that there was no OFW representative during its drafting.
In a petition sent to President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, the OFWs also renewed their appeal to give them a preferential rate of P50 to a dollar as a gift for this year’s Christmas. Arroyo has not acted on an earlier petition.
The new petition said “the government failed to implement any that will help ease” the burden of continued appreciation of the peso that is detrimental to the OFWs and their families.”
“There is no end in sight as to this downtrend yet,” it emphasized.
