Masterplan for Overseas Filipino Workers’ reintegration to be inked

The government and the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) are working to set in place a framework that would ensure orderly reintegration of Filipino migrant workers who had spent a large part of their lives working abroad.

According to the Philippines’ Department of Labour and Employment (DOLE), is collaborating with the IOM to come up with protocols “towards holistic and integrated reintegration of overseas Filipino workers (OFWs)” back to mainstream Philippine society.

A big number of the millions of OFWs have spent most of their lives working overseas and some of them are encountering difficulties when placed in a situation where they are forced to leave their jobs or urgently return to the Philippines due to political conditions in their host country.

Most often, the disruption in their work if closely followed by disturbance in their relations with their family or difficulty in getting back to mainstream Philippine society.

A Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) signed by DOLE and IOM tries to lessen this disruption in the lives of Filipino workers.

The signatories in the agreement are DOLE Undersecretary Dominador R. Say, OWWA Administrator Hans Leo J. Cacdac, IOM Mission Coordinator and National Programme Officer Ricardo R. Casco, and National Reintegration Centre for OFWs (NRCO) Director Chona M. Mantilla.

Under the two year OFW reintegration national master plan signed between the Philippines and IOM, both parties will implement the Migration and Development, and Crisis Management Frameworks.

The scheme “seeks to contribute to the outcomes of improving the national reintegration framework and service delivery systems,” the DOLE said in a statement.

The MOA will be carried out through the National Reintegration Summit declaration. DOLE and IOM will also be joined in the project by other two DOLE attached agencies that provide services and programmes for OFWs and their families, namely the Overseas Workers Welfare Administration (OWWA) and the NRCO.

Also included in the two-year project are the production of reintegration services duty bearers handbook, which outlines the products and services OFWs can expect from government institutions when they return home.

It also covers reintegration services menu for migrant returnees and their families; ISO certification of reintegration service delivery systems; and training of reintegration counsellors and duty bearers.

OFWs contribute a large part to shoring up the Philippine economy. For decades, it had kept the country afloat from economic difficulties felt by other countries.

As a measure to give back to the OFWs, the Philippines is trying to ensure that there would be economic safeguards in the event that these migrant workers encounter economic difficulties as individuals or as a sector in their respective work areas in different parts of the globe

source : gulfnews