Each year the Catholic Church celebrates National Migrants Sunday (NMS), a special time dedicated to the migrants especially to the Overseas Filipino Workers (OFWs) and their families.  The celebration is spearheaded by the Episcopal Commission for the Pastoral Care of Migrants and Itinerant People (ECMI) of the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines (CBCP).  In the midst of the global financial crisis, the Church feels doubly the responsibility to offer solace to migrants in their period of suffering. Once more she has expressed her solidarity to those affected OFWs who had been the first victims of displacement in labor migration and whose families suffered the immediate effects of global economic meltdown.

Last August, many OFWs based in Taiwan had been forced to stop working due to the weak demand of exportable products in United States and Europe. The repatriation of these OFWs however was not yet felt in the country until November when their bigger numbers were summarily repatriated from Taiwan where many of them are employed in factories. Of late, some engineers in the Middle East were also reported to have been advised to take an indefinite vacation as some construction projects came to a halt. The engineers were not told however when they are going back to work. Meanwhile, the families of those OFWs recently displaced due to economic recession have started to bear the profound effects. The OFWs who sought help from the ECMI were worried where to get money to support them in their daily needs. The arrival of these displaced OFWs reminded yet again ECMI of the same dilemma of OFWs, mainly women, who were returning from Lebanon when they were caught in the crossfire that broke between Israel and Lebanon in July 2006. They came home practically without anything in their pockets. Some of them even came back with the same clothes they wore for three days after fleeing from war.

The vulnerability of the situation of migrant workers has been brought to the attention of the Philippine government in several meetings in the past. The Church in fact has been critical of government’s labor export policy. While Section 2 of Republic Act 8042 clearly declares that the State does not promote overseas employment as a means to sustain economic growth and achieve national development, the actions however of most government leaders consistently contradict it. In 2006 for instance, the government was happy to report that it exceeded its labor export of one million and expressed pride for the steady increase of remittances from OFWs. Last 2008, the Banko Sentral ng Pilipinas has reported that 16.43 billion dollars was remitted by the OFWs to the country, hinting that there was still an increase in the remittances despite the reported global crisis. Moreover, just when the group of repatriated OFWs arrived in the country last November, President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo had issued Administrative Order 247 directing the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA) to “execute a paradigm shift by refocusing its functions from regulation to full blast market development efforts, the exploration of frontier, fertile job markets for Filipino expatriate workers.” This again shows clearly how the highest official of the country contradicts RA 8042 on non-promotion of labor migration. To achieve this, the President orders her Cabinet to “render full support to the POEA so it can aggressively deploy Filipino expatriates.....with urgency and unbothered by institutional hurdles.” This AO targets to break through the 200-country barrier. The problem however is all labor sending countries in the world now are similarly aiming for the scarce jobs that other countries could offer. This is the same reason why labor migration policy is a bad policy and cannot be a means to achieve real economic development for the country. Most government officials however capitalize on the declaration of the International Labor Organization (ILO) that the Philippines is a global model for managing its labor migration. Hence, most government officials are proud to declare on the versatility of the Filipino workers and their being “world class” workers, aside from being the country’s modern heroes. Never mind if they are badly treated in many countries.

While the Church does not encourage nor discourage migration, the evil that comes with it has been her greatest concern. The Erga Migrantes Caritas Christi (the Love of Christ towards migrants) Section 21 calls on Christians in particular to be aware of the phenomenon of migration and to realize its influence to life. The Second Vatican Council reaffirmed the right to migrate (cf. GS 65), the dignity of migrants (cf GS 66), the need to overcome inequalities in economic and social development (cf GS 63) and to provide an answer to the authentic needs of the human person (cf GS 84). The last affirmation brings all the time migrants to declare the reason why they have to leave and risk facing the consequence of evil that comes with migration. The poor governance of the country, particularly the current one, is what had brought the almost ten percent of the country’s population to opt for job overseas, exposing them to stay away from their families and loved ones. They had to make these sacrifices in order to feed their families and improve their economic status.

It is in this vein where “The sacrifices of the Filipino migrants mirror the journey of St. Paul,” which is the theme of the 23rd National Migrants’ Sunday, was thought about. Just like St. Paul, the apostle who had to leave his family to bring the Good News of Jesus Christ to the Gentiles, many Filipino migrants overseas endure sufferings in their jobs and are challenged  to fight for justice amidst exploitation and abuse in the hands of their employers and recruiters. It is an open secret that many Filipinos are compelled to pay huge amounts of placement fees before they can work overseas. Paying for placement fee is against the Anti-Illegal Recruitment Law, but nobody seems to pay attention to this. Not many illegal recruiters however have been persecuted despite the many complaints brought to court. For the ordinary Filipino, to secure a job overseas means one has to offer first a placement fee.  The Church continues to condemn this immoral practice, when workers are made to buy their jobs and many times are even cheated and unjustly treated once abroad.  Media may have probably now published millions of pages on the sad experiences of Filipinos who have been victims of illegal recruitment alone.  Other social costs brought by migration however were overcome all the time by the remittance figure.

La Union Bishop Artemio Rillera, SVD, DD hosted of the 23rd National Migrants’ Sunday in his Diocese of San Fernando. Approximately 1,500 faithful mainly family and relatives of OFWs came to attend the Eucharistic celebration presided by Bishop Precioso Cantillas, SDB, DD, the bishop of Maasin and chairman of the Episcopal Commission for the Pastoral Care of Migrants and Itinerant People (ECMI) of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines (CBCP).  Bishop Cantillas had to fly all the way from his own diocese to provide support to his fellow brother bishop (Rillera) who expressed deep concern over the plight of the OFWs and their families left behind. The celebration was not merely a church activity in La Union because even local government officials came to support the resolution for the creation of the La Union Inter-Agency Council for Migrants’ Concerns (LUIMCO) which was adopted immediately on that day.  The NMS activities began with the assembly at the City Plaza Auditorium and people marched in procession to Christ the King College where the rest of the program of activities was conducted. Other NMS activities were celebrated in other dioceses mentored by ECMI for their migrants’ ministry. Bishops and their diocesan migrants’ ministry led their respective National Migrants’ Sunday.