Don’t bet on remittances

Earlier last week, Labor Secretary Silvestre Bello 3rd briefly took the lead in the ongoing “Which official can say the stupidest thing” competition by disclosing that he had dangled an offer of allowing the deployment of more Filipino health-care workers to Germany and the United Kingdom in exchange for those countries providing the Philippines with coronavirus vaccines.

The suggestion that the official most responsible for the welfare of Filipino labor saw nothing wrong with defining the value of an entire class of workers in milliliters went over with the public about as well as you would expect. Bello was left hanging by officials in Malacañang and the diplomatic offices of both countries, all of whom immediately distanced themselves from his remarks, and the Labor chief himself was within hours of the news doing his best to walk back his comments.