Should deportees find no more alternative for livelihood help

LinKaPil eyed for reintegration assistance for returnees

By JEREMAIAH M. OPINIANO
OFW Journalism Consortium

ZAMBOANGA CITY - The Commission on Filipinos Overseas (CFO) is studying the possibility of providing interventions for the socio-economic reintegration of the undocumented Filipino returnees from Sabah, per the request of the Region 9 office of the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD).

Stella Jawis, a DSWD-Region 9 social worker, pleaded to CFO staff members Evelyn Duriman and Marita del Rosario to provide more help for the Zamboanga returnees.

What the returnees need, Jawis said, are interventions that will work for the long-term socio-economic reintegration of the deportees. The reintegration of returning migrants to their countries of origin has proven to be one of the most difficult tasks for governments managing international labor migration.

Livelihood assistance probable

In response, Rona Magno, director of CFO's Projects Management Office and head of the Lingkod sa Kapwa Pilipino (LinKaPil) program, said the agency will discuss the possibility of providing livelihood assistance to the returnees.

LinKaPil is CFO's philanthropy program that has raised P1.098 billion (as of June 2002) from 1,532 individual and organizational donors--all overseas Filipinos-since 1990.

Magno said CFO will link up with appropriate sectors "that will (help) initiate livelihood programs for (the returnees)." But she noted that the request must come from returnees themselves, or from DSWD-Region 9.

Local DSWD officials noted that some of the returnees still want to go back to Sabah since there are no jobs in the Philippines. They reported that 16 percent of 1,587 deportees whom they are gathering information about want to return to Malaysia.

Which brings to the fore the problems brought about by the return migration of Filipino overseas workers. In a recent report Inter Press Service said that OFWs come home "with little, or sometimes no savings, in spite of decades of overseas employment."

"Sadder still that many come home to realities that remain unchanged, including the dependence on dole-outs by their own families and relatives, and a sluggish economy that doesn't produce jobs," journalist Marites Sison reported in the IPS story.

Success remains to be seen

In a paper on return migration presented for an international conference in Rotterdam, The Netherlands, the Ateneo de Manila University-based Institute on Church and Social Issues (ICSI) described socio-economic reintegration as a "long and tedious process" and "the extent that actual and prospective return migrants can reintegrate successfully remains to be seen."

"Ultimately, however, return migration, like emigration, is a personal choice and the consequences are shouldered by individuals. The decision to return and to support the origin community are for the migrant to make. The migrant could choose otherwise," noted the ICSI research paper, Migration and Social Development: Challenges to Return Migration and Reintegration in the Philippines.

Migrant civil society groups in the Philippines have responded to the challenge of return migration by working with the Overseas Workers Welfare Administration (OWWA) to develop a comprehensive OFW reintegration program (CORP) that will provide economic and psychosocial interventions for the returning Filipino migrants.

Last week, the National CORP Council, OWWA and civil society representatives discussed the possibility of providing quick response to the reintegration needs of the Sabah deportees.

CFO's Magno said the Commission is ready to provide micro-finance for the returnees if applicants really run out of alternatives in finding institutions that are willing to support them. "The approach now is (to) open opportunities for micro-finance for returning migrants. We can be part of the efforts for that. We can link up with a group that can assist them," she said.