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Saturday, February 28, 2004
8 Mindanao provinces deploy more OFWs: CBCP
By Christie Enriquez-Uayan
EIGHT areas in Mindanao are included among the top 50 cities and provinces in the country that account for highest number of overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) as of 2002, said Cristelito Abadilla, Mindanao coordinator of the Catholic Bishop's Conference of the Philippines - Episcopal Commission for the Pastoral Care of Migrants and Itinerant People (CBCP-ECMI).
Abadilla on Friday identified these areas as: Davao del Sur -- 36,175; Maguindanao -- 28,698; Zamboanga del Sur -- 23,951; Misamis Oriental -- 11,523; Davao del Norte --11,079; South Cotabato -- 10,732; Lanao del Sur -- 9,721; and Lanao del Norte -- 9,209.
"According to the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA), to date, the number of Mindanoans going to other countries to work increased by three fourths in 2003," he said.
Based on POEA Mindanao records, overseas workers increased to 14,900 as of 2003.
There were only 8,575 OFWs registered in 2002, excluding the undocumented OFWs and those that choose to apply at the POEA head office in Metro Manila.
According to Abadilla, instead of viewing this as a positive development, the government and the Filipino people should "condemn the conditions that force them to seek greener pasture."
The CBCP-ECMI statement handed to media reporters in the same forum also stated "it is to our shame that our main source of dollars are our overseas workers because it means our own industries are not able to employ them in the first place."
Last year, OFW remittances almost hit $8 billion, generated from the 7.53 million OFWs in nearly 200 countries in the world.
Even executive director Sister Mary Celine Cajanding of the Center for Overseas Workers (WOW) expressed her reaction on the apparent lack of support by the government to the OFWs and their families.
"We hope the POEA and the Overseas Workers Welfare Administration (OWWA) will look into the problem that these OFWs are into," she said, adding that majority of the OFWs are doing the "most difficult, dangerous, and dirtiest jobs elsewhere in the world."
(February 28, 2004 issue)
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