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By Efren L. Danao, Senior Reporter
Senate President Manuel Villar rapped the
decision of the Overseas Workers Welfare Administration (OWWA) to
suspend its pre-departure loans to overseas Filipino workers (OFWs),
saying it has left them at the mercy of loan sharks and shattered
the hopes of the poor from working abroad.
OWWA recently announced that it was suspending
its pre-departure loans to OFWs after collecting only 30 percent of
the P70 million in loans it had granted to OFWs.
Villar said that instead of blocking OFWs’
access to direly needed pre-departure loans, OWWA must instead
consider improving its collection system first to make it more
effective.
“Pre-departure assistance to OFWs is a very
crucial component of our efforts to enable our workers to grab work
opportunities abroad,” he stressed.
Villar, who has kept tabs of the conditions of
OFWs in his visits abroad, noted that many OFWs encounter problems
like nonpayment of wages, human trafficking and legal suits, making
them incapable of paying their loans.
“An efficiently managed system of
pre-departure loans should take these things into consideration,”
he urged.
He noted the growing number of maltreated OFWs
who have escaped from their employees and are awaiting repatriation.
He is pushing for a P1-billion repatriation fund after noting the
inadequacy of funds for the purpose. He himself sponsored the
repatriation of at least 15 maltreated OFWs from the Middle East
last month, rather than wait for the funds to be appropriated.
Labor secretary and concurrent OWWA chief
Marianito Roque said that the agency had remained financially stable
despite the 30-percent loss in collecting payments for pre-departure
loans disbursed.
Roque reported that the current total assets of
OWWA stood at P10.2 billion. Of this amount, P8.2 billion was placed
in various investments, while the rest was being used for worker
welfare assistance programs such as livelihood projects,
scholarships, training and repatriation funds.
Villar said that if government can give
assistance in training and scholarships to aspiring OFWs, then it
should not also neglect pre-departure aid to those who are ready to
work overseas.
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