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Friday, February 17, 2012

Increased dollar remittances means more OFWs go abroad—migrant leader

ANTIPOLO City, Feb. 17, 2012—The increase in dollar remittances is but a result of more and more Filipinos being “peddled” abroad and not the result of the better economic and working conditions of the overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) abroad, a migrant leader said.

Migrante Middle-East regional director John Leonard C. Monterona in a statement said the US$20 billion aggregated income coming from the dollar remittance of more than 10 million Filipinos working in different parts of the globe is already expected as there is also an increase of deployment of Filipino labor overseas.

“But one must see the down trend when it comes to the amount or volume of dollars being sent home due to the political turmoil on different parts of the Middle East, Africa, as well as the worsening economic situation in Europe and in the United States,” he said. Monterona also said that the recent catastrophe in Japan and New Zealand also affect the quality and availability of work in the said areas.

For the migrant leader, the intensified labor export and the Administration’s active “selling” of Filipino labor overseas are but proofs of the weak economic and social policies being implemented in the country.

“It is not good to see that under the Aquino administration the labor thrust is still the same of previous administrations—the intensification of peddling unemployed and underemployed Filipino workers, who in dire need of employment and income to support their families, are forced to accept dirty, dangerous, and dehumanizing jobs abroad without the concrete protection of their well being, safety and labor rights,” he said.

“As the trend continues, that only means that the Government has continued to fail in creating well-paying and permanent jobs in the Philippines and the reliance on labor export is but a wrong decision for the State as the international economic conditions indicate that this market would eventually shrink, thus will also fail to support the local economy in the long run,” he explained.

Meanwhile the migrant rights advocate renews his call for genuine agrarian reform, which will lead to the national industrialization.

“By strengthening the agricultural sector, meaning, by implementing agrarian reform and giving technological and financial support to farmers, it would create a sound economic base that, in the long run, will bring the Philippines into an industrialized and wealthy state, thus there is no need to make labor an export commodity,” he said. [Noel Sales Barcelona/CBCPNews]

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