ELLENE SANA, DIRECTOR CENTER FOR MIGRANT ADVOCACY

Reprinted with permission from The Migrants "Ang Mga Dayuhan" magazine

ELLENE SANA, DIRECTOR, CENTER FOR MIGRANT ADVOCACY
OFW who had been following this Travel Ban Saga is already acquainted with Director Ellene Sana. CMA is our front-runner in the lifting of the Travel Ban. This interview was conducted by Eunice Barbara Novio, an author, a Women Leadership Scholarship Recipient of Channel Foundation in Seattle USA, currently taking MA in Women and Development at UP Diliman, in Manila.
An Interview with Ellene Sana, Director, Center for Migrant Advocacy

1. How did the CMA come up with its advocacy on migrants? Personally, why did you choose migrant workers' plight as an advocacy?

CMA, right at the outset was meant to focus on advocacy. Hence, the name also. As we were forming CMA, we did a scoping of existing migrant groups and the programs and services they provide; we also consulted our partner OFWs and organizations here and abroad to find out if the idea of a CMA is good and if it would have added value in the promotion of the rights and well being of OFWs and their families. The result of the scoping as well as the consultation was that there aren’t many groups that are primarily into advocacy work. That was it!

It was something I am excited to do as well because I have been doing and engaging in campaigns and activities that are cross-border in nature – I was coordinator of the Philippine Solidarity for East Timor and Indonesia where we conducted and spearheaded campaigns in support of the right to self determination of the east Timorese peoples. We walked with them until their referendum for independence in 1999. I am also involved in the free Burma coalition which supports the democracy movement in Burma and calling for the release of Nobel Laureate Aung San Suu Kyi. This work required us to engage with governments, to examine the conduct of foreign relations of governments....after I was released from my arrest in Burma in 1998 for my solidarity activities with the peoples of Burma, I realized I should be just as involved with OFWs many of whom are quite vulnerable to abuses and exploitation being non-nationals in foreign countries. That was it...

2. Advocacy work, I believe requires hard work and lots of finances, how did you manage to keep both?
Yes, it requires hard work, lots of patience, lots of organizing and constituency building and yes, resources. And results of advocacy take a long time to be obvious...as this involves a long haul process too..... keeping a balance of the requirements for effective advocacy is tough especially the financial/ resources requirements. Fortunately, if you are effective with the non-financial/material requirement, chances are, support for resources is bound to follow suit....

3. What are the factors that make your advocacy successful?

a. Effective and dedicated advocates – who know the issue inside out; the facts and figures are on your fingertips, so to speak. Advocates should also be sufficient in number in order to cover and engage everyone concerned.... for example in a legislative advocacy –sometimes both chambers of congress –house of reps and senate conduct their committee hearings simultaneously; advocates should be able to cover both – in Quezon City and Manila... or if there are several policy makers to engage in, sufficient number of advocates will enable the team to engage everyone.

b. clarity of the issue – advocacy issues are meant to benefit a broad section of the population; hence it should enjoy popular support, should have direct involvement and engagement of stakeholders and affected sectors of population;
c. knowing the advocacy terrain – identify primary groups/ policy makers to lobby; identify allies and friends and other groups and networks that can bring the issue closer to the policy makers
4. It's been a while since you were extending help to the OFWs in Nigeria. How did it start? What is the status of the OFWs in Nigeria?

It started with you – when you brought to our attention, through another friend who is your kababayan – the issue of Filipino fisher folks who were detained and maltreated in Malaysian jails... we 've kept in touch since then until you mentioned that breadwinner of your family, Vangie from Nigeria, is coming home for her vacation. True to your statement, you took Vangie to CMA. She mentioned then a current campaign of theirs – to lift the deployment ban to Nigeria which has been imposed by DOLE since 2007. Exchanging information with Vangie and the others from Pusong Pinoy in Abuja, not only about the deployment ban issue, but on the general situation and day to day concerns of OFWs in Nigeria was quite interesting. It broadens our knowledge of OFWs which would usually be focused in the Middle East.
5. Do you think the Arroyo government does not have any interests in Nigeria, thus, the ban?
The Arroyo government has diplomatic ties with Nigeria. We have some 4000 OFWs, mostly skilled workers there since the 1970s – this is more than enough reason to be in good relations and standing with the Nigerian government. Our post in Abuja serves as its representative office in the whole of West Africa. Nigeria is therefore an important country to the Philippines.

6. What is the impact of "ban" to the host country (like Lebanon and Nigeria) and to our country?
A ban policy of course causes strain in relations between Nigeria (Lebanon) and RP. Imagine after saying and affirming that Nigeria is such an important country to us (item 5), the government imposes a ban because of security concerns! It does not blend well at all. In the case of Nigeria, what is confusing too is that the Philippine Embassy itself (the Phil. Representative office that serves as its eyes and ears in Nigeria and whole of West Africa), on several occasions, had recommended to DFA the lifting of the ban – or at the minimum to make it selective deployment ban. Interestingly, the post recommendation went unheeded because the DFA's recommendation to DOLE to impose the deployment ban policy did not take into consideration the recommendations of the post. Of course, needless to say, the OFWs were not consulted as well.

We brought this issue to the UN Committee on the migrant workers convention during its recent 10th session in Geneva where the Philippine Government was examined for its compliance with the convention. Both the commission on human rights and the Philippine migrants rights groups led by CMA called the UN committee's attention on the matter.
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OVERSEAS ABSENTEE VOTING

Director Sana is also calling on OFWs to register as an overseas absentee voter at the nearest Philippine embassy or consulate in your locality. February 13, 2003, the 12th congress enacted into law the overseas absentee voting to give back the right to vote to overseas Filipinos. It took congress 16 years to fulfill the constitutional provision for a system of OAV for overseas Filipinos. She reiterated the fact that ‘we all fought hard for this law so please use it to assert your political right as a Filipino. Be counted, get involved.’ CMA also advocated the project “Help is Just a Text Away.” It was showcased at the first “Migration for Development Knowledge Fair” under the thematic area of Migrants Rights. .....in Brussels, Belgium. The Fair, organized by the European Commission and the UN partner agencies, as part of the new EC-UN Joint Migration and Development Initiative, was held at the Musee du Cinquantenaire in Brussels, Belgium from 1st-4th December 2008.The SOS SMS was launched on february 14, 2006. For the first year activation of the SOS SMS, CMA's intake of cases of distressed migrants increased by 500%, with a thousand SOS SMS cases, or 86% of all cases of CMA for 2006. 66% of these SOS SMS cases were from Saudi Arabia (one reason for this is because the SOS SMS project was an initiative of our OFW partners in Saudi Arabia -- the SOS SMS - pusong mamon task force- anginyonglingkod.org -- hence it is most popular in Saudi; another explanation is of course that we do have many distressed OFWs in Saudi considering that 1 in 4 OFWs is in Saudi.)
Help is just a text away at +63 9209 OFW SOS