DFA, DMW urged to secure more social security pacts for OFWs

THE DEPARTMENT of Foreign Affairs (DFA) and Department of Migrant Workers (DMW) must reach out to other countries and forge more social security agreements (SSAs), especially those with a large number of overseas Filipino workers (OFWs), urged Senator Imee Marcos on Monday.

Are OFWs safe in Taiwan?

‘China continues to violate Taiwan’s air defence zone’

MANILA - Are Filipino workers safe in Taiwan amid the brewing tension in South China Sea and China’s aggression towards the island nation? Yes, if you asked Manila Economic and Cultural Office (MECO) Chairman and Resident Representative Silvestre Bello III, who allayed concerns about the safety of Filipinos in Taiwan amid brewing tensions with neighboring China.

OFWs keep economy afloat

OVERSEAS FILIPINO workers (OFWs) worldwide have kept the economy afloat even during uncertainties, as they send billions of dollars in remittances to the Philippines annually.

Philippines negotiates with Saudi to protect OFWs

THE GOVERNMENT is now negotiating with Saudi Arabia so that Filipino workers could get appropriate wages and protect their rights and well-being.

Dozens of travellers turn up Covid positive in Zambo

ZAMBOANGA CITY – Dozens of travellers were held Wednesday in the southern Philippine city of Zamboanga after testing positive for Covid-19.

OFWs told to honor job contracts

THE PHILIPPINE Overseas Employment Administration on Thursday reminded overseas Filipino workers to honor their employment contacts and strictly obey laws in their host countries.

Flights from ‘red list’ countries cancelled due to Omicron

FILIPINO WORKERS who are bound for countries included in the Philippines' so-called 'red list' due to the threat of the new Covid-19 variant called Omicron will not be able to travel to their host nations for now after the government cancelled all flights to those places, the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA) said.

OPINION: Pencing by Mario O. Feliciano Jr.

WHY DO some Filipinos opt to remain in Afghanistan? Afghanistan is one country where no one dares to thread now. It’s all because of the Taliban takeover of the peace-loving Afghans’ capital city of Kabul, and its environs.

Delta variant in Cebu

DOCTOR EDSEL Maurice Salvana, a molecular epidemiologist from the University of the Philippines, said the Delta variant of the Covid-19 is now in Cebu and is causing the large spike in cases in the province.

Guidelines on inbound travellers released

CEBU - Inbound international travellers who were fully vaccinated in the Philippines, regardless of their travel history, and those fully vaccinated from other countries who stayed exclusively in “green” countries or jurisdictions 14 days prior to arrival in the country, will be able to enjoy a shorter quarantine period, according to Presidential spokesman Harry Roque.

OFWs now part of Covid-19 vaccination priority

MAYOR BENG Climaco has urged overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) to avail of the vaccination program of the government after the Department of Health (DOH) included them in the A1 category.

Cebu told to follow IATF arrival protocols

CEBU - President Rodrigo Duterte said Cebu province must abide by the arrival protocols set by the national government’s Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases (IATF-MEID), the Palace spokesman said.

Protocols for returning OFWs, foreign travellers proposed

CEBU - Following his recommendation for the Covid-19 Inter-Agency Task Force (IATF) to reconsider the current protocols for overseas Filipino workers (OFW) and returning overseas Filipinos, Senator Richard. Gordon recommended a set of rules for fully vaccinated returning OFWs, Philippine residents, foreign tourists and foreign businessmen.

Warning up on ‘money mules’

SWIFT AND BAE Systems Applied Intelligence have published “Follow the Money” - a new report that describes the complex web of money mules, front companies and cryptocurrencies - that criminals use to siphon funds from the financial system after a cyber-attack.

Zambo working with gov’t agencies to help return of stranded folks

ZAMBOANGA CITY – Mayor Beng Climaco said the local government continues to work closely with national government agencies in efforts to bring back home residents stranded outside their place of origin.

DSWD strikes out half of Zamboanga City’s poor families from SAP

ZAMBOANGA CITY – Half of Zamboanga’s poorest population was taken out from the government’s Special Amelioration Program, or SAP, and now the local government is asking for additional funding to feed all those removed from the cash emergency subsidy.

Pamilya ni OFW Jeanelyn Villende, sumisigaw ng hustisya!

KORONADAL CITY – Tatanggihan umano ng pamilya ng pinaslang na overseas Filipino worker na si Jeanelyn Villavende ang posibleng pag-aalok ng blood money ng kanyang Kuwaiti employer bilang kabayaran sa malagim na sinapit ng Pinay sa kamay ng mga amo nito.

Nasawi sa gulpi si Jeanelyn at hustisya ngayon ang sigaw ng kanyang pamilya. 

Ayon kay Abelardo Villavende, ang ama ni Jeanelyn, ay mariing tutulan nito ang anumang alok na blood money ng mga amo na anak at nais nitong mabitay ang mga pumatay sa kanyang anak.

Dagdag pa nito, na isang malakaing kawalang respeto kung magpapabayad lamang sila sa pumatay sa kanyang anak.

Ang 26-anyos na si Jeanelyn ay residente ng Baragay Tinago sa bayan ng Norala sa South Cotabato.

Sa ngayon, hinihintay parin ng pamilya ang resulta ng autopsy at bangkay ng biktima.

Samantala, tiniyak naman ng Overseas Workers Welfare Administration (OWWA-12) na mananagot ang mga sangkot sa pagkamatay ni Jeanelyn upang mabigyan ito ng hustisya.

Sinabi ni Nelly Padernal, ang tiyahin ni Jeanelyn, na hindi umano inaksyunan ng recruitment agency ang nangyari sa biktima na minaltrato sa kabila ng kakarampot na sweldong binibigay sa Pinay. 

Dumating na rin kamakailan ang Bangkay ni Jeanelyn at base sa embalment certificate mula sa Kuwait, ang sanhi ng pagkamatay nito ay “acute failure of heart and respiration as result by shock and multiple injuries (in the) vascular and nervous system.” (Rhoderick Beñez)

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Overseas Filipino Bank continues to attract OFWs

THE OVERSEAS FILIPINO Bank or OFBank - owned by the Land Bank of the Philippines or LANDBANK - continues to attract more overseas Filipino workers because of its many services that cater to land-based OFWs, seafarers, immigrants, and Filipinos with working visas.

Remittance services are likewise available to OFBank clients through LANDBANK’s extensive network of remittance partners worldwide. As of end-April 2019, around 2,000 new OFW accounts have been opened with OFBank, according to Catherine Rowena Villanueva, First Vice President, Corporate Affairs Department of LANDBANK..

She said OFBank, which has been operational since its launch in January 2018, has already introduced various products and services for its target markets. And these services include deposit products such as the EMV-enabled Visa Debit Card, Checking Account, Easy Savings Plus, High Yield Savings Account, USD Savings Deposit, and USD Time Deposit; along with various loan products such as housing, multipurpose, salary, and SME loans.

OFBank is currently in a transition process to move toward a “One Branch Digital Bank” model and this includes consolidating OFBank branches which started in March 2019 upon receipt of approval from the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas.

Villanueva said part of the transformation to utilize mobile and online platforms is the integration with LANDBANK’s iAccess retail banking portal, which allows OFBank clients to conduct banking transactions online.

She said the OFBank Mobile Banking App was launched in July 2018 and the OFBank Board of Directors is further reviewing the Bank’s business model to ensure that the needs and concerns of the target clientele are aptly addressed.

Currently heading the OFBank is a nine-member Board of Directors composed of six Directors from LANDBANK and three Directors on holdover capacity, pending official appointment of the three Directors to represent the Department of Labor and Employment, the Overseas Workers Welfare Administration, and an OFW Representative. (Mindanao Examiner)


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SSS maternity disbursements reach P7-B in 2018, increase in OFW benefits eyed

CAGAYAN DE ORO CITY - The Social Security System (SSS) said more than 326,000 female members were assisted by the agency in 2018 with maternity benefit disbursements reaching to around P7 billion, a 15.6 percent increase from over P6.11 billion recorded in 2017.

“We are glad that we are able to assist more of our female members financially during their pregnancy in 2018. We have recorded an increase of 12.6 percent or 36,550 female members more who availed of the benefit in 2018 compared to the previous year,” SSS President and Chief Executive Officer Aurora C. Ignacio said.

Of the total number of beneficiaries in 2018, 68.2 percent or 222,551 are employee-members with total disbursements amounting to P5.98 billion. Voluntary members followed comprising 25 percent or 81,641 with total disbursements of around P850 million. This is followed by self-employed members with 4.5 percent or 14,692 and Overseas Filipino Worker members with 2.3 percent or 7,429 with total disbursements of around P80 million and P150 million, respectively.

Moreover, SSS maternity benefit disbursements in the first two months of 2019 have already reached P1.34 billion with over 62,000 beneficiaries. “We are expecting that these disbursements will continue to increase this year following the implementation of the 105-day Expanded Maternity Leave Law (EMLL) after the Implementing Rules and Regulations was already signed on Labor Day," Ignacio said.

The EMLL will push the current 60/78-day paid maternity leave to 105 days for live childbirth, regardless of the mode of delivery, with an additional 15 days for solo mothers and an option for an additional 30 days without pay.

A 60-day paid leave, on the other hand, will be given to a qualified female member in case of miscarriage or emergency termination of pregnancy. The maternity benefit may be granted regardless of the frequency of deliveries or miscarriage. Further, the current maximum financial assistance of P32,000 will increase to P70,000 based on the P20,000 Monthly Salary Credit.

“SSS is motivated to continuously develop its benefit programs to provide more meaningful assistance to its members,” Ignacio said. “We recognize the needs of mothers and their new-born babies. We hope that through the EMLL, women workers may be able to fully enjoy their rights to health and decent work,” she added.

Ignacio said they are also committed to give Overseas Filipino Workers (OFWs) higher social security benefits especially during their retirement as it pushes to implement the compulsory coverage of OFWs mandated under Republic Act 11199 or the Social Security Act of 2018.
She said the pension fund will exhaust all ways to come out with the guidelines on compulsory OFW coverage.

SSS data showed that as of end-2018, there were 1.14 million registered OFWs in the system, of which around 550,000 were paying members during the year. The pension fund also disbursed an estimated P5.65 billion in benefits to more than 63,000 OFW pensioners and members in 2018, or 89 percent of the P6.37 billion contributions collected from OFWs on the same year.

The pension fund is proposing that all land-based OFWs should pay at least a minimum monthly contribution of P960 which is equivalent to 12 percent of the new minimum monthly salary credit (MSC) for OFWs of P8,000. Even paying only one month of contribution at the new minimum MSC, an OFW-member will get 61 times in return from his contribution or P58,400 in total lump-sum benefits for disability, death or retirement plus funeral grant.

If they opt to pay at the highest MSC of P20,000 or P2,400 monthly contribution, the benefit amount would be P116,000. Sickness benefit of OFW-members will also increase under the new minimum MSC for OFWs. From the previous P150/day, it will increase by 60 percent to P240/day. Maternity benefit will also increase by more than double from P10,000-P13,000 to P28,000 under the Expanded Maternity Leave Law which took effect on March 11.

For retirement benefit, those with 120 qualifying monthly contributions at P8,000 MSC will have a basic monthly pension amounting to P3,200. If they are paying based on the P20,000 MSC, the pension benefit will be P8,000 per month. This shows that the higher the contributions, the higher the benefits.

"We'd like our OFWs to know that membership with SSS is for life. Membership does not expire so all contributions you put in are all accounted for. In case you stopped paying due to work abroad, you can always reactivate your membership by continuing to pay your contribution to become eligible to the seven types of SSS benefits including unemployment insurance. I hope our OFWs will look at SSS contributions as their long-term savings and not an expense burden," Ignacio said.

Ignacio said that SSS as an implementor of the law will make sure that all provisions under the SS Act of 2018 will be fully realized. At present, SSS has 26 foreign representative offices in 18 countries for OFW member assistance services. (With a report from Mindanao Examiner)

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7,000 Pinoys barred from leaving country

Over 7,000 Filipino travelers were barred from leaving the country in the first quarter of this year due to the government’s intensified campaign against human trafficking, the Bureau of Immigration (BI) said.

BI Port Operations Division Chief Grifton Medina said a total of 7,311 passengers were deferred for failure to comply with requirements for travelers bound overseas from January to March. “We have been very careful in assessing these travelers as we wanted to ensure that they will not be victimized by human traffickers and illegal recruiters,” he explained.

He said that in screening departing passengers, they follow the guidelines on departure formalities for international-bound passengers by Department of Justice (DOJ). He said that BI officers are duty-bound to strictly screen departing passengers because they “constitute the last line of defense in the government’s drive to combat trafficking in our ports”.

Medina also clarified that being disallowed does not mean perpetual denial to depart the country. “Passengers whose departures were previously deferred will be allowed after complying with requirements based on the DOJ guidelines. These requirements were set by the Inter-Agency Council Against Trafficking (IACAT) to ensure that our kababayans are protected from being victimized abroad," he said.

Erwin Ortañez, head of the BI’s Travel Control and Enforcement Unit, said more than 6,000 or about 84 percent of the passengers came from NAIA while the rest were stopped in the airports of Mactan, Clark, Iloilo, Kalibo, and Davao.

He said that majority of the barred passengers had doubtful purpose of travel while some committed fraudulent acts such as misrepresentation and submitting spurious supporting documents. Among them were the underage overseas Filipino workers who were caught falsifying their birth dates in their passports and some Filipino workers who presented fake overseas employment certificates.

BI Commissioner Jaime Morente lauded his personnel for their vigilance even as he exhorted them not to relent in their efforts to combat human trafficking. “We will continue our drive to protect our countrymen from these syndicates who keep on sending workers abroad illegally, making them prone to abuse and exploitation in foreign lands,” he said. “The fight against human trafficking and illegal recruitment is a priority for this administration. Modern-day slavery has no place in this world, and we will make sure that Filipinos are protected from this threat,” Morente added.

Morente noted that the country retained its Tier 1 rating in the US State Department’s 2018 Trafficking in Persons (TIP) Report, which was achieved through their efforts and other partner agencies. “We're one of the leading countries in the region when it comes to fighting human trafficking,” said Morente.

The premier TIP rating was retained by the Philippines for the third straight year and is one of 39 countries among 186 surveyed that continued to demonstrate serious and sustained efforts to fight trafficking. A Tier 1 rating is given to those who fully comply with the minimum standards of the US Trafficking Victim Protection Act. (Ferdinand Patinio)

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