Disruption at DMW

“A king without a kingdom.”

This was how Senate Minority Leader Franklin Drilon described the head of the newly-minted Department of Migrant Workers (DMW), Abdullah Mama-o, whose recent actions have precipitated a turf war in the agency.

In December 2021, President Duterte signed Republic Act No. 11641 creating the DMW, which would replace the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA), as the main agency tasked with overseeing policies on overseas Filipino workers (OFWs). The DMW was created to improve coordination among relevant offices concerned with the welfare of OFWs.

Following his appointment, the former special envoy to Kuwait immediately issued Department Order No. 1, series of 2022, asserting his right to exercise the powers and duties of the Office of the Secretary. The order directs all agencies meant for consolidation and/or merger with the DMW to submit to his jurisdiction. Affected by the order are the Office of the Undersecretary for Migrant Workers’ Affairs of the Department of Foreign Affairs; the POEA; the International Labor Affairs Bureau of the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE); the National Maritime Polytechnic, also under DOLE; the National Reintegration Center for OFWs under DOLE’s Overseas Workers Welfare Administration, and the Office of the Social Welfare Attachés under the Department of Social Welfare and Development.

As if to further establish his authority, Mama-o asked the Commission on Elections to get his endorsement or approval in all requests for exemptions from election laws by DMW’s new appointees or transferees.

Last week, the new appointee rejected the Duterte-approved implementing rules and regulations (IRR) drafted by the transition committee, and said that he still expects his own version of the IRR to take effect 15 days after the document was published on April 6.

One might ask: What’s wrong with a man who hits the ground running? Don’t we just love a dynamic leader who gets things done, and fast?

The problem is, Drilon pointed out, Mama-o still has no department to head. Unlike other departments created by law, the DMW needs to meet three conditions before it is deemed fully operational and constituted by law, the most crucial being a budget or appropriation in the 2023 General Appropriations Act. Said Drilon: “There is no way to satisfy [that] condition because we are only in the 2022 Budget. The deliberations for the 2023 budget will not take place until later this year,” he said. That means under a new government elected in the May 9 elections.

Drilon urged Mr. Duterte to “immediately fire” the new appointee for “putting his personal interest” above the needs of the sector he should protect. Mama-o can be held liable for usurpation of authority if he continues to exercise the functions of the DMW even if the agency is yet to be constituted, Drilon said. The former labor secretary added that Mama-o’s issuances “have no basis and only disrupt what should have been a smooth transition.”

On March 15, Labor Secretary Silvestre Bello III issued a memorandum directing the heads of the agencies mentioned in Mama-o’s order to stay put and to “remain and continue to operate under the control and supervision of the [DOLE] until such time that the DMW has been duly constituted and rendered operational under the law.” On April 5, Executive Secretary Salvador Medialdea said as much to Mama-o in a letter, adding that the POEA continues to function as an independent agency despite the creation of the DMW. On April 18, the President nullified the IRR that his classmate at the San Beda College of Law had issued on his own, and instead approved the version submitted by the transition committee.

Needless to say, Mama-o’s preemptive (presumptive?) actions have led to what Bello describes as “confusion and disruption of public service to the detriment of migrant workers.” Mama-o, for instance, ordered the lifting of the deployment ban in Saudi Arabia on April 25, but Bello told labor attachés the next day that the ban remains in place.

The internal dispute is the complete opposite of what the DMW seeks to accomplish, said Blas F. Ople Policy Center and Training Institute president and labor advocate Susan Ople. This is certainly not an auspicious beginning for a new department tasked with looking after the country’s modern-day heroes who have been keeping the economy afloat with their remittances.

The question is why, despite being a campaign promise some six years back, the DMW was created only in the dying days of the current administration, with so many loose ends at that. With a change of government just months away, shouldn’t the matter of constituting the DMW wait until a new administration comes in to define and firm up each agency’s jurisdiction? Shouldn’t Malacañang order Mama-o to step away and stop sowing chaos and confusion? Being caught in the crossfire and chaos of an internal rift is definitely the last thing the OFWs need at this time.