Labor-exporting countries should unite

We have many government officials rewarded with high salaries in government agencies and corporations, but what has the government done to similarly reward overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) whose dollar earnings have saved our struggling economy for many years? They have suffered the loneliness of being far away from loved ones for a long time. News reports of OFWs being victims of abuses by their foreign employers have become common. As a result, many have returned home broken in body and spirit, and the most unfortunate ones in coffins.

If our government bans the deployment of our workers in countries with abusive employers, they would simply recruit workers from other labor-exporting countries. Thus, it is time for our government to ask the governments of other labor-exporting Asian countries to join it in negotiating, as a group, with host-employer countries for the protection of overseas workers and the punishment of abusive employers. To prevent a common form of employer abuse, for instance, they should be required to deposit in banks the salaries of OFWs. This will greatly prevent the nonpayment of workers’ salaries by erring employers.

MARCELO L. TECSON
Bonifacio Global City
[email protected]