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LAST week, in anticipation of Labor Secretary Arturo
Brion’s appointment to the Supreme Court, I wrote down five names
of potential candidates to replace him.
They were OWWA Administrator
Marianito Roque, labor attache to Geneva Manuel Imson, POEA
Administrator Rosalinda Baldoz, labor attache to Japan Danny Cruz
and Foreign Undersecretary for migrant affairs Esteban Conejos.
President Arroyo did appoint
Brion to the High Court and, in his place, she named Roque, who was
No. 1 in my list, as acting labor secretary.
Roque’s appointment is a reward
long earned for his long and dedicated public service, hard work and
experience, and heroic vision for workers’ welfare and protection.
As labor chief, Roque plans to
review all labor issuances of DOLE to update them to meet the
demands of the times. He feels the need to bring humane perspectives
to labor policy to improve employment promotion, workers protection
and industrial peace.
He will continue the policies of
his predecessor but will introduce from time to time his own
innovations to promote workers’ welfare and protect their rights,
without losing sight of the interests of employers.
Roque developed his spurs in the
labor department during the time of the late Labor Secretary Blas F.
Ople. A fresh graduate in economics from the De la Salle College in
Manila, he started in 1976 as a statistician and planning officer in
the defunct Overseas Employment Development Board, the forerunner of
the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration.
He later became employment
marketing officer. When OWWA was created in 1982, he was promoted to
technical assistant to the administrator and concurrent head of the
agency’s resources management unit.
He rose from the ranks in
succession—to OWWA director, deputy administrator and finally OWWA
boss. All important innovations in OWWA are the product of his
creative vision.
Roque institutionalized the OWWA
Operations Center, which monitors crisis and distress situations
involving overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) round the clock, seven
days a week. He developed the informal wage remittance program for
OFWs.
He inaugurated the homecoming
program for overseas workers, focusing on livelihood projects
assistance to help ensure their economic well-being after the
expiration of their work contracts.
During the Gulf War, Roque was in
the forefront of the mass evacuation of some 32,000 OFWs from Kuwait
and Iraq. As the labor attaché in Jordan at the time, I helped him
provide food and shelter to the evacuees at their holding centers in
Amman, Jordan ’s capital.
The new secretary is a dynamic
operator who helped in the release of 500 OFWs from Saudi Arabia
’s jails and their eventual repatriation to the Philippines.
During the Israeli-Lebanon conflict, he co-managed with the foreign
affairs department the evacuation of 6,000 threatened Filipino
workers from Beirut.
Roque derives his eclectic
education on labor and diplomatic affairs from his extensive travels
abroad as head or member of Philippine delegations to labor
conferences. He led job marketing missions and managed crisis
situations affecting OFWs.
In his speaking engagements, he
articulated the concerns of the Philippine government over migration
problems, such as the application of information and communication
technology to migrant communities.
Roque is presently busy finding
ways to help OFWs cope with their problems arising from the
weakening of the dollar and the rising remittance fees. Overseas
workers have lost 20 percent of their dollar income with the
dollar-peso exchange rate going down from 56 pesos to a dollar in
2005 to 42 pesos to a dollar today.
“I want to talk to remittance
agencies on how their remittance charges can be bought down to a
reasonable level to alleviate the problem of our OFWs,” said the
new labor secretary.
To help OFWs cope with the rising
peso, he lowered to P42 the membership computation for OWWA
membership fees, an action hailed by the Federated Associations of
Manpower Exporters (FAME).
He is conceptualizing a health
care program for OFWs and members of their families, saying that the
soaring hospitalization costs and the high prices of medicine are a
big burden to them.
Roque’s record of integrity,
passion for work and loyalty to government service inspire public
confidence in his stewardship of the labor department. He deserves
everybody’s support in the pursuit of labor goals and causes.
agr0324@yahoo.com.
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