REALITY NG BUHAY OFW - Part 2

Hard Part of Being an OFW is Leaving….

 Whenever I am alone I can’t help it but to recount past events in my life, asking questions and stupid enough in trying to find answers. Why am I here in a foreign land, totally different culture or should I say mix of cultures? Does my eldest daughter know that I have left them to provide for them?

 Will my four year old son still see me as his father? I was able to be with my family last April for a month and I am lucky enough that my boy and I didn’t have any trouble bonding, he has this charming character of being able to deal with strangers, yes I was a stranger to him because I left him when he was only 15 months old and have no memory of me. As for my daughter and even with my wife there was this awkwardness but with much effort I was able to patched up things and my vacation was enough to energize me for yet another year of being away from them.

It is unfair for OFWs to be treated as revenue mill or as OFWs consider themselves as government’s milking cow. With their dollar remittances that keep the Philippine economy afloat including the strengthening of peso against the dollar, it is unfortunate that the government continue to levy additional fees on this sector. Although OFWs do not oppose government’s plan to provide universal health insurance to the poor, it is immoral to use solidarity to burden the already suffering workers overseas.



Overseas Filipino Workers sacrifice a lot to provide a better life for their families in the Philippines. They spent holidays, birthdays, anniversaries, Christmas, New Year and other important occasions away from their families.

It has an effect of the children of Ofw's. No money can replace the hug of a father or mother, no toy or balikbayan box can take the place of the quality time spent together with ones family.

Children will feel that they are missing the love of their father and or mother but it doesn't have to be that way. The Internet has tools to can bring families together for free. These tools can provide ways for families to see and hear each other for free. It gives them the chance to connect and spent quality time even if they are hundreds of miles away.

Requiring migrant Filipinos in the UAE (United Arab Emirates) to secure an AOS (affidavit of support (AOS) before they can have their relatives visit the country does not resolve the problem of human trafficking but actually increases the financial burden for OFWs (overseas Filipino workers).

The AOS is also a source of corruption for unscrupulous airport and immigration officials in the Philippines and is a form of discrimination because it is a clear restriction against everyone’s right to travel.

While we would like to see human trafficking be solved immediately, we firmly believe that any move by the Philippine government to curb such crime should not result to worse policies for migrant Filipinos.

The cost of obtaining a notarized AOS in the UAE is AED 100 (1,195 Pesos) cuts the already meager salary of most OFWs.

In the face of the budget cuts in operations and services of OFW-related government agencies, we can only see the AOS as part of the Philippine government’s drive to mulct funds from the hapless Filipinos working abroad.

Worse, the Philippine Immigration Department’s restrictions on OFWs and their families are very discriminatory. The vague provision of assessing the “personal capacity to travel” of a person is very subjective and arbitrary. What it means in reality is that if you do not look rich or cannot prove that you are rich – despite having the actual capacity to sustain yourself overseas – then you will most likely not be allowed to leave the country.

The absence of a clear mechanism and guidelines of the Bureau of Immigration breeds confusion, inconvenience, and more exploitation to OFWs and our families.

The OFWs are already discriminated in countries where they work and reside. Are we going to suffer the same problem in our own country by the Philippine government itself?

The issue of AOS has also been already raised by OFWs in other areas such as in Hong Kong and Macau. Sadly, no concrete response has been made by the Aquino government on this concern.

Despite its implementation, there has been no indication that trafficking has abated.

Our rights are at stake. We have formed the (name of the coalition) to represent the voice of OFWs in UAE and we say: Scrap AOS. No to exaction and corruption. Yes to protection.
The AOS is not a solution to the problem of trafficking. It is an added problem to the already burdened OFWs.

STOP STATE EXACTION, STOP EXTORTION ! ! !
PROTECTION NOT COLLECTIONS ! ! !
SCRAP AFFIDAVIT OF SUPPORT ! ! !

Around 9.5 million to 12.5 million overseas Filipinos are the estimated count worldwide or about 11% of the total population of the Philippines as of 2010.

More than a million Filipinos try their luck each year to work abroad through overseas employment agencies and other programs, including government-sponsored initiatives. A majority of them are women applying as domestic helpers and personal service workers. Others emigrate and become permanent residents of other countries. Overseas Filipinos often work as doctors, physical therapists, nurses, accountants, IT professionals, engineers, architects, entertainers, technicians, teachers, military servicemen, seafarers, students, caregivers, domestic helpers, fast wood workers especially in the middle east and maids.

The exodus includes an increasing number of skilled workers taking on unskilled work overseas, resulting in what has been referred to as a brain drain, particularly in the health and education sectors. Also, the exodus can result in underemployment, for example, in cases where doctors undergo retraining to become nurses.

Overseas Filipino Workers have always been seen as the milking cows of whoever is in power in the Philippines. With their huge remittances keeping the Philippine economy afloat, paying homage to them as the unsung heroes of the land has become so commonplace as to now sound insincere and cliché.

What is fair about taxing OFWs? They suffer depression, culture shock and many times abuse, financial, mental or even physical, at the hands of unscrupulous foreign employers. The vast majority of OFWs earn less than $1,000 a month, the high earning engineers and ship captains being only a small portion of all OFWs. Why should OFWs pay taxes on income earned abroad, when they are not living in the Philippines to benefit from government services? Most countries exempt their citizens from income tax if they live abroad, and many OFWs are already being taxed in the countries that they work in.

It’s bad enough that OFWs have to go through an eye-of-the-needle-like procedure at the airport due to the mandatory paperwork they have to show before they can be allowed to board the plane. All that is made even worse now that the fees they may have to pay would leave a big hole in their pockets. The required fee doesn’t stop with the OWWA contribution. They also have to pay the POEA processing fee of PhP100.00; Philhealth contribution of PhP900.00; Pag-Ibig membership of PhP100.00, not to mention the ever-increasing airport tax! All this financial strain just adds to the physical and emotional strain every OFW has to go through every time they leave the country.

The Philippine economy will collapse without the Overseas Filipino Workers (OFWs). Remittances from the OFWs contributed significantly to the 7.3% growth in the economy in 2010. The spending fuelled by the billions of dollars they send back home is a factor that is likely helping the country avoid a Greece-like economic failure.

The POEA is not even clear on where the funds for the exit fees go. It’s not like it will help assist the OFWs who are in need overseas. Some of those who had to leave Libya earlier this year due to the uprising were forced to evacuate without any help from the Philippine government.

Even if you are not good in math, your calculator will show you that P100.00 multiplied by 3500 OFWs everyday is P350,000.00 daily that will go to…I really think that this exit fee should be scrapped.

Life in our country is not that easy that is why a lot of Filipinos go overseas to work. Here we encounter a lot of experiences good and bad. We are lucky if we found a good employer to work with, but sometimes it’s not always a happy ending. Working in a foreign country, we face a lot of challenges and difficulties. We sacrifice a lot just to give our families the best life we dreamed for them, for parents who are not able to take good care of their own children because they are away and for children who cannot enjoy the company of their parents as they grow. We adjust to almost everything like language, their way of living, culture, customs ,beliefs, foods etc.

This is what we call the Real Life of Being An OFW…

>>> Read previous post: REALITY NG BUHAY OFW-Part 1