The Travel Ban Issue

And here in Nigeria with our jobs intact, with very good working conditions, no need for GMA to market - and yet a Travel Ban is imposed ...very ironic indeed!

NGOs oppose Arroyo order to market OFWs
By Veronica UyINQUIRER.net
First Posted 08:11:00 01/23/2009
MANILA, Philippines --
President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo's Administrative Order 247 to market overseas Filipino workers is against the spirit of Republic Act 9422, which gives the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration stronger regulatory powers, the Philippine Migrants Rights Watch said.
AO 247 instructs the POEA to "execute a paradigm shift by refocusing its functions from regulation to full blast market development efforts, the exploration of frontier, fertile job markets for Filipino expatriate workers." To achieve this, the President ordered the Cabinet to "render full support to the POEA so it can aggressively deploy Filipino expatriates ... with urgency and unbothered by institutional hurdles."
"Is this the way for government to respond to the global economic meltdown? Subjecting more of our people to external market conditions where we have almost no control of?" asked the NGO network that includes the Apostleship of the Sea (AOS), the Center for Migrant Advocacy (CMA), the Development Action for Women Network (DAWN), and Episcopal Commission for Migrant and Itinerant People (ECMI).
In a statement signed by members of the network of non-government organizations on migrant workers, the group suggested that the government veer away from the economic principle that is dependent on external markets, and instead beef up the domestic economy that would create full employment in the country.
The network also suggested that the budget be reviewed so that the country's needs for job generation and poverty alleviation would be reflected, instead of automatic debt repayments. "The President was with us in this campaign [for RA 9422] which took 11 years before [it] was finally enacted in 2006. She certified this bill as urgent in the 12th and 13th Congress, but now she is setting it aside in favor of aggressive marketing of our people overseas," it said.
"PMRW is aghast by this government's ineptness to the real needs of its suffering peoples. Rather than see the economic situation as a challenge and come up with a long-term viable and developmental policy for the country that is long overdue, the government is again relying on the migrants and OFWs to salvage the economy and keep it afloat.
"If we indeed consider them as our modern-day heroes, then let us treat them as such and guarantee that they reap the rewards of their labor and sacrifices," it added. At the same time, the PMRW also criticized AO248, or the so-called "payback program," which creates a Filipino Expatriate Livelihood Support Fund to help returning OFWs.
It said that with the initial funds of P250 million coming from the Overseas Workers Welfare Administration, this supposed help from government is actually coming from the OFWs themselves, whose $25 OWWA membership fee funds OWWA. "OWWA is purely OFW money, mostly illegally collected from the OFWs themselves," it said. PMRW said the OWWA membership fees collected from OFWs were illegal because the law provides that employers should shoulder the fees.