By Sonny Fernandez
File photo of returning OFWs Courtesy: PNA
President Rodrigo Duterte is expected to sign into law anytime soon, the proposed Department of Migrant Workers and Overseas Filipinos Act.
This, after the Senate approved on third and final reading, Senate Bill No. 2234 and adopted by the House representatives last December 14 and 15, 2021, respectively.
With the adoption of the Senate version, the two chambers will skip a bicameral conference committee meeting and the measure would be transmitted to Malacañang for President Rodrigo Duterte's signature.
The measure will consolidate existing agencies tasked to address various programs, services, issues and concerns of migrant workers.
It will absorb the functions of the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration mandated to protect the rights of migrant workers.
Six other offices will be absorbed and merged in the proposed OFW department including DFA-Office of the Undersecretary for Migrant Workers’ Affairs (OUMWA), POEA, POLO, International Labor Affairs Bureau (ILAB), National Reintegration Center for OFWs (NRCO) and the National Maritime Polytechnic (NMP) under DOLE, and the Office of the Social Welfare Attache of DSWD).
The Overseas Workers Welfare Administration (OWWA), will become an attached agency of the proposed department.
The OFW department will formulate and enforce policies.
It will also regulate overseas employment and the reintegration of overseas Filipino workers.
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