We are OFWs, Filipino migrant and immigrant workers, youth, and women demanding a pro-people PH budget.
Budget for jobs, food and agriculture development, social services, welfare protection, education, and healthcare not pork barrel, war, confidential and intelligence funds!
Unity Letter: Filipinos Overseas Demand a Pro-People Philippine Budget
TO: Members of the Philippine House of Representatives
Members of the Philippine Senate
President Marcos Jr.
We are OFWs, Filipino migrant and immigrant workers, youth, and women demanding a pro-people budget be passed in the Philippines.
The Philippine budget has a direct impact on Filipinos overseas. Our community — many of whom are still Filipino nationals — regularly experience exploitation, marginalization, discrimination and violence in the form of low-wages, unsafe and inhumane working conditions, human trafficking and illegal recruitment, hate crimes, displacement from natural disasters, war and conflict and economic crises in our host countries.
Yet, when we seek the assistance and services entitled to us from the Philippine government, we have been met with apathy, neglect, and even hostility. Provision of services remain slow, inefficient, and inaccessible for many working Filipinos, especially those who do not live in cities where Consulates and Migrant Worker Offices (MWO) are physically based.
We are angered to see hundreds of billions of pesos being placed in pork barrel through infrastructure project kickbacks and “unprogrammed appropriations,” secret Confidential and Intelligence Funds, and debt payment. Hundreds of billions more are allotted for a huge 50 percent increase in the Defense Budget.
Meanwhile, social services and programs that can help aid in protecting and upholding the rights and welfare of millions of Filipino families, including overseas Filipinos are being cut. The Department of Migrant Workers’ budget was decreased by 28.7 percent: from P6.3 billion to P4.5 billion. Compare this to the P7.8 billion going toward the NTF-ELCAC, an agency notorious for committing human rights violations.
Allocating adequate funding for serving the needs of the Filipino community overseas, especially the most vulnerable is ultimately the responsibility of the Philippine Congress and President Marcos Jr, who will sign the national budget into law.
We demand a people’s budget that would ensure:
- A lion’s share of the DMW’s budget go toward direct OFW assistance;
Full subsidization of OWWA’s programs and services; - Increased funding for the DFA’s Assistance to Nationals Fund (ATN), and the DMW’s AKSYON Fund for Overseas Filipinos in need.
- Financial and livelihood aid, medical assistance, counseling services, communication and transportation assistance, legal assistance, education assistance, and rescue and repatriation assistance for victims of the following, but not limited to:
Victims of labor/human trafficking
Victims of wage theft, abuse and other forms of labor rights violations
Victims of domestic violence and unjust detention
Victims of hate-related violence and discrimination
Victims of disasters, natural calamities, and war and conflict; - Funding for additional consular offices in areas with high concentrations of Filipinos;
- Sufficient funding to provide timely and accessible consular services for OFWs and overseas Filipinos such as such as passport renewals, dual-citizenship process, civil registry, overseas voting outreach, etc.
- More migrant shelters with expanded bed capacity for all genders especially in the Middle East, Asia and Europe;
- Livelihood support for returning OFWs, including those released from jail, the economically displaced, and those returning from conflict zones;
- Free access for seafarers to retraining and certification services;
More state-run training centers for seafarers be built in addition to the National Maritime Polytechnic; - Funding for local job creation, food and genuine agriculture development, public education and health care, and social services
- Abolish all forms of pork barrel, re-channel budget for confidential and intelligence funds to public social services
We will continue to put pressure on Philippine consulates, embassies, our legislators in Philippine Congress, and President Marcos Jr. by building the movement for a pro-people budget until our demands are heard and met.
SIGN & SHARE OUR PETITION!