Reintegration Programs in the Philippines
Edwin Corros
Episcopal Commission on Migrants and Itinerant People - Manila
Brief Background
The systematic deployment of Filipino workers to other countries or labor migration began in the 70’s. From Pres. Marcos up to the present administration overseas employment has become a permanent-temporary measure to local unemployment. Today, there are about 7.5M to 8M Filipinos working and living in about 197 countries all over the globe. Everyday we have approximately 2,500 Filipinos leaving the country. Indeed, that makes the Philippines a major labor exporting country. This massive exodus of both skilled and unskilled workers will still escalate unless the government has its clear policy in providing and generating jobs for local employment, and aimed at ending labor export.
The mind-set is indeed due to the steady and enticing flow of OFW remittances that help keep the country’s economy afloat. According to the monitoring of the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas, for the past nine months of 2004, the OFW remittances sustained a double-digit growth reaching $6.2 billion, which was due mainly to the higher deployment of land-based workers consisting largely of higher paid professionals and technical workers, service staff and skilled production workers.
Where OFWs’ Earnings Go?
How are the earnings of the OFWs spent? How come they failed to prepare for the future when in fact that is the reason why they go abroad? The overseas Filipino workers did provide for their families’ basic needs, improved living conditions, sending children to better schools, small businesses for income sustainability, and other material benefits. However, these economic benefits of overseas employment are tempered by its psychosocial costs. These range from exploitation and abuse, to absentee-parenting, breakdown of marriages, dysfunction of families, growing-up problems of children, brain drain, etc. Added to these, the negative impact which is economic in nature still abounds on a significant number of these ‘modern-day heroes,’ as the politicians would call them, when overseas employment is over.
There is a large number of cases of workers without savings, or the savings have soon been depleted during the period of unemployment upon return. Workers who were past their prime productive years find it difficult to compete with local workforce. On the other hand, for those who have found local jobs would consider the salary inadequate or are asked to begin at a lower position than their experience commands. And workers who sought loans to begin a business venture were discouraged by prohibitive requirements. These are some of the common experiences of returning and returned OFWs.
These depressing truths are due to the government’s failure to capitalize the OFWs remittances to a more responsive, productive, sustainable and effective OFW reintegration program even after Republic Act 8042 was enacted in 1995 that mandated the Philippine government, specifically the Overseas Workers Welfare Administration (OWWA) to carry out a reintegration program for overseas Filipino workers.
Reintegration, an Approach to Solve Problems of Returning OFWs
Reintegration is the term that has come to be accepted in referring to programs that are mainly designed to facilitate the re-entry of OFW s into the economic mainstream on the premise that such re-entry is a difficult task.
For several years now, different efforts on reintegration have been initiated, implemented and institutionalized by various non-government organizations (NGOs) in the Philippines and in the job sites. Some OFW organizations in other parts of the world launched and developed reintegration/economic empowerment programs. Some of these groups are: the Forum of Filipino Reintegration and Savings Groups in Hong Kong; the Solidarity Center in Japan; the Philippine Seafarers Assistance Program (PSAP); and the Commission of Filipino Migrant Workers in Europe.
In the Philippines, there are various models of programs on reintegration being provided by different NGOs. Taking the challenge on the immediacy of these tasks and believing in the premise that “a reintegration program requires the concerted and coordinated efforts of individual migrants, migrant organizations, their families, GOs, NGOs, Local Government Units (LGUs), enterprise development centers, schools, churches, and other groups and organization,”5 the First National Conference on Reintegration was organized. This was a joint government and NGO initiative in April 2002 in the hope of achieving cooperation and some level of unity in doing reintegration for OFWs and their families. It was organized by Atikha Overseas Workers and Communities Initiatives; Unlad Kabayan Migrant Services Foundations, Inc; BaliKaBayani, Inc. and the Episcopal Commission for the Pastoral Care of Migrants and Itinerant People (ECMI) of the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines; and the OWWA for the Philippine government.
The Philippine Council for Comprehensive Reintegration (PhilCoRe) was created as the consequence of the conference to act in accordance with resolutions of the conference. This established GO-NGO body was tasked to plan out programs and measures for OFW reintegration programs.
The members of Philcore are one in believing that the core component of the OFW’s Comprehensive Reintegration Program (CORP) is the empowered OFWs together with their families as primarily responsible for preparing their lives after overseas employment. Reintegration does not only start on the returning phase. It is a process that should start from pre-departure, during employment, and post employment phases. The Psychosocial and economic aspects are likewise two important areas where support services are very much needed. Values formation, counseling, information, education activities are some services that must be in place to address the psychosocial needs.
The role of the government is seen as vital. The Comprehensive Reintegration program must be a part of the national development program of the country. Specifically on economic concerns, a right climate for savings and investments for the OFWs and their families must be provided by the government, so that they can productively utilize their hard-earned remittances. Trainings on skills, financial and business management must be accessible to those who will be engaging in an enterprise. Likewise, these programs on reintegration must be found within the local communities, parishes, and in collaboration with the local governments and other agencies and NGOs to achieve a more productive role of migrants and their families, and to contribute to the over-all community development.
Church Efforts on Reintegration
Over the years, the church, through the Episcopal Commission for the Pastoral Care of Migrants and Itinerant People (ECMI) has established a number of services to cater to the pastoral and social needs of OFWs and their families. The Church highly esteems the family, regarding it as the heart and center of society where love, justice, peace, fraternity and equality are experienced, nourished and cultivated. Migration damages the center, breaks the heart, destroys its harmony; it separates, splits families, causes dysfunction in its normal course, generating problems and challenges to family and society. Concerns on this became even more intense as the recent statistics show that of the 15.34 Million Filipino Families, 8 Million or about 60 percent are affected directly or indirectly by migration.
In the face of these threats, the Second Plenary Council of the Philippines states the commitment of the Church to the Ministry of Migrants by putting up special programs to address such crucial issues as migrants and overseas workers. The Church’s program is towards building a community of disciples and a church of the Poor among migrants and their families. Its core services include: Education and Training, Para-legal Assistance, Values Formation, and economic reintegration.
ECMI’s Comprehensive Reintegration Program is an attempt to contribute a durable solution to break the vicious cycle of migration. It assists the migrant families to put up viable individual or group livelihood projects, and empowers them to provide social services that strengthen family and community relationships. It entails family unification, renewal of familial and social relationships, adjustment to local life and work conditions. Overseas employment shall be a family encounter where issues and concerns on the pre, during, and post employment are discussed and planned out by the members of the family.
Education and Training aims to inform the migrant or would-be migrant and his family on emerging issues related to overseas migration. ECMI’s information campaign addresses High School and College students as well as the faithful in parishes and dioceses.
In partnership with the Commission for Filipinos Overseas of the DFA, ECMI trains teachers and religious to bring to students especially in private and sectarian schools nationwide, the awareness of the advantage and disadvantage of migration through the use of an educational module on migration demanded by the Department of Education’s order No. 247 Series 1988.
Para-Legal Assistance and Advocacy is meant to promote and protect the fundamental rights and the dignity of people on the move. ECMI’s Para-legal Desk facilitates and assists migrant workers on labor-related disputes. It engages in partnership with the national and local government agencies/units in facilitating cases and in its advocacy work. Concretely, ECMI facilitated the creation of a committee for migrant workers within the City Council of Caloocan through Councilor Mitch Cajayon.
Values formation intends to preserve the core Christian values and to strengthen the family as the center from where the Gospel is transmitted and from where it radiates. At present, ECMI is directly coordinating with the private-sectarian schools in the organizing and formation of Sons and Daughters of OFWs (SDOs) as a support program for the OFW children left-behind, e.g., RVM Schools, Parochial Schools in the Diocese of Nueva Vizcaya, Bayombong, etc.
Micro-lending package is also available to groups and individual migrant families within a parish or diocese. One important element of this is the formation of a savings association among migrant families, not only to inculcate the discipline in savings, but also to instill the strength of pooling of resources for a common livelihood activity in the community where they belong.
These programs are implemented in cooperation with the diocesan and parish migrant desks, not only in the Philippines but also in the host receiving countries through the Chaplains.
Recommendation
The work of the Church and other NGOs to address the pressing problems of returning migrants and their families are impacting too little. There is consistent hope that we need to pool all our resources in order attain some noteworthy results. Various efforts of different sectors, and agencies had been in place, yet, migration issues and challenges seem to have no end. As a conclusion, we reiterate and propose the following interventions: 1) the only alternative to overseas employment is the creation of local jobs with decent remuneration; 2) government organizations/agencies should provide OFWs with opportunities to invest in the country; 3) local industry should absorb qualified returnees; 4) a comprehensive social benefit package should be developed by all government organizations related to employment overseas; and 5) create government programs that will harness the skills that OFWs newly have learned from working overseas, and make these OFWs productive partners in the local industries.
Finally, the government should really address corruption sincerely and by doing so the enormous poverty this country faces hopefully will be equally given some significant solutions. It is only when the economy of this country becomes stable and better that the problem of OFWs and their families will be resolved.
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