Press Release

NGOs lament slowdown in services due to DOLE-OWWA rift

by Dennis Estopace
OFW Journalism Consortium

IT took three weeks and three attempts before forty-year-old Nanay Luming finally got her Medicare papers signed by an Overseas Workers' Welfare Association (OWWA) employee.

Each time she had had to come all the way from Bulacan. On the first two visits to the OWWA office in Pasay City, she had been told the employee was "unavailable".

Nanay Luming is one of the clients of the non-government organization Kapisanan ng mga Kamag-anak ng Migranteng Manggagawang Pilipino (Kakammpi) which links the slowdown in basic services of OWWA to a rift between its head and Department of Labor and Employment Secretary Patricia Sto. Tomas.

"Just one signature and it took OWWA three weeks!" Kakammpi Executive Director Fe Nicodemus exclaimed about Nanay Luming's case. Nicodemus also cited the case of an Overseas Filipino Worker (OFW) whose repatriation from the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) took three months.

"She only had to get a visa to go back to the Philippines. That was all she needed to come home. The family also had to shoulder all the expenses that the OWWA should have given, like plane fare," Nicodemus said.

Threats needed to get action

She added they had to threaten the agency here with an expose to make the agency act on the case of their client. Kakammpi is an organization of migrant workers' families advocating migrants' rights and welfare. Assisting OFWs in tapping OWWA benefits is one of their services.

Nicodemus lamented that the personality conflict between OWWA Director Wilhelm Soriano and Secretary Sto. Tomas "is so overdrawn that service delivery to migrant workers and their families is dragged needlessly into the fray."

"Not that there is a difference [between] before and after the OWWA-DOLE leadership rift in terms of service delivery. But now we cannot complain too loudly when OWWA employees say there is no budget for such and such service," Nicodemus added.

NGO Kaibigan Executive Director Noel Josue agreed. He said OWWA employees can now point to the DOLE who, they say, ordered OWWA to use only 80 percent of its budget of 500 million pesos.

NGO budgets first to get trimmed

"So OWWA had to trim its expenses. Usually, the budget for its partnership with NGOs like us are the first to get trimmed," Josue adds.

Josue cited the Pre-Departure Orientation Workbook Project that Kaibigan and OWWA organized. He said the workbook would have been given free to workers graduating from the Pre-Departure Orientation Seminar (PDOS) that NGOs like Kaibigan provides to prospective OFWs.

"According to our agreement, OWWA should have shouldered the printing cost for the 10,000 initial copies. But because of the budget cuts and because we needed to give out these workbooks, we had to shoulder the [costs of] printing," he said.

Now, Josue said, they sell the workbook to interested OFWs at 50 pesos (US$1.0372) on an optional basis.

He added that the DOLE-OWWA leadership rift may have also delayed the transfer of PDOS coordination from the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA) to OWWA, which should have taken place last January.

Of monkey wrenches and pissing contests

"The delay threw a monkey wrench in our program phasing. We had to wait and see for more than six months because our partner agency was caught up in a pissing contest," Josue said.

Nicodemus and Josue shared similar sentiments that OWWA services to migrant workers should not be affected, since the collection of US$25 membership fee per OFW "apparently is unaffected" by the DOLE-OWWA rift.

Nicodemus said the effect on Kakammpi is the doubling of effort in their own service delivery to migrant workers' families.

"Before, it only took us days to acquire services for clients coming to us such as repatriation of loved ones or securing Medicare services. Now, it's taking us weeks, even months," she said.

Josue, on the other hand, said while the transfer of PDOS coordination from POEA to OWWA is under way, "finer details cannot be arranged overnight, like OFW's payments for the seminar."

A prospective OFW pays 75 pesos (US$1.45) each for a one-day PDOS given by POEA-accredited organizations like Kaibigan. The amount covers trainers' fee, participants' food, and certificate. Each seminar hosts a maximum of 50 OFWs.

Publish OWWA fund status, not personality-debasing paid ads

Nicodemus recommends that either agency reveal the status of the OWWA fund by publishing an account in a newspaper, "instead of paid ads that debase personalities."

She also recommends that NGOs be represented in the OWWA Board who would ensure delivery of services, "instead of joining the politicking."

"This slowdown is unjustifiable since migrant workers are paying for such services. The contest between DOLE and OWWA should be on their achievements in delivery of services rather than on who is more influential or powerful to whom," she added.

Josue, on the other hand, requests either agency to share with the public a development plan for OWWA and the consequences of transferring OWWA Medicare funds to PhilHealth.

Transparency should be OWWA and DOLE primary goal

"Transparency in such a transaction should be a primary goal of either OWWA or DOLE. This could have avoided mud-slinging and accusations of corruption," he added.

In a statement sent via facsimile, Officer-In-Charge Delmer R. Cruz apologized for not giving a comment on behalf of OWWA. Attorney Cruz sits as OWWA representative as Administrator Soriano has been on sick leave since August 1.

"Forgive me but prudence would dictate that I refrain from issuing any comments except that the matter is currently being resolved at the highest level," the lawyer and OWWA Deputy Administrator said. However, Attorney Cruz said he wants to assure that "the delivery of OWWA's services and programs continues to be normal."

OWWA is an agency in the Philippine government attached to the DOLE and has a two-fold mandate: to provide welfare assistance to registered overseas workers and their dependents and to ensure the viability of the Fund. The estimated US$72.14M OWWA Fund is a trust fund pooled from the contributions of foreign employers of land-based workers and seafarers.

There were an estimated 2,885,628 OWWA members as of August 2001. The President of the Philippines appoints the OWWA Administrator while the DOLE Secretary has to be approved by the Commission on Appointments composed of representatives from the Lower and Upper House of Congress. - OFW Journalism Consortium

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Press release contributed by:

OFW Journalism Consortium
Contact address: INSTITUTE ON CHURCH AND SOCIAL ISSUES
2/F ISO Building, Social Development Complex, Ateneo de Manila University,
Loyola Heights, Quezon City, Philippines
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