[POL 135] RA 8042

• Migrant Workers and Overseas Filipinos Act of 1995 or Republic Act (RA) 8042 signed

  7 June 1995
• Migrant Workers and Overseas Filipinos Act of 1995 or Republic Act (RA) 8042


  Signed by then-President Fidel V. Ramos
• The shaping and final stages of its promulgation was done before the controversial execution of a Filipina domestic helper in Singapore Flor Contemplacion (March 17, 1995)
• Republic Act 8042


  Significant departure from the previous policy framework and program as defined in the Labor Code of 1974 or Presidential Decree (PD) 442
• RA 8042


  Applies a more protective framework that takes into account the plight of Filipinos overseas who are in distress, including those who are undocumented
• RA 8042


  More oriented towards the protection and promotion of migrants' rights and welfare through deregulation and labor market development or management
• RA 8042

  Seeks to reduce if not remove altogether those restrictive bureaucratic procedures and mechanisms and allow for the simplification of relations to just "strictly a matter between the worker and his foreign employer"
• Contemplacion case (1995)


  A dramatic event that caused national trauma
• The Contemplacion episode (and the elections that accompanied it) acted as a policy catalyst that triggered the chain of events leading to the enactment of RA 8042 and its deregulation provisions
• The causal proposition that the Contemplacion tragedy directly brought about the deregulation policy framework instituted in RA 8042 is indeed disputable and insufficient
• Maricris Sioson case (1991)

  Filipina entertainer in Japan named Maricris Sioson died under mysterious circumstances, but failed to instigate the kind of deregulation framework contained in RA 8042
• In 1991, the Aquino administration declared a total ban on the deployment of Filipina overseas performing artists (OPAs), which was later relaxed through the addition of guidelines on testing, certification, and deployment of OPAs
• Philippines 2000 (1992)


  Launched by Pres. Ramos at the start of his administration, a vision and program of reform and sustainable development for improved quality of life for the Filipino, in pursuit of which the Ramos administration embarked on a strategic policy that is largely market-centered
• Medium Term Philippine Development Plan (MTPDP)


  NEDA under the Ramos administration is able to systematically carry out programs that are in pursuit of these market-centered objectives
• Presidential Decree 442


  Enacted as early as 1975, otherwise known as the Revised Labor Code, the declared policy of the State is "to protect every citizen desiring to work locally or overseas by securing for him the best possible terms and conditions of employment"
• The implementation of the country's overseas employment policy and program has yielded substantial results over the last 25 years, with the number of Filipinos processed for overseas contractual work growing by almost 2,000 percent from a little over 36,000 to almost 700,000 between 1975 and 1991
• Since 1984, income remittances from overseas workers make up about 50 percent of total recorded remittances reflected in the country's balance of payments account
• Private labor recruitment agencies


  These entities have historically dominated the sector, and the Philippine government has tried to manage the way that the overseas employment program has been carried out by regulating the outflows of labor
• Each year, thousands of hopeful Filipinos are victimized by agencies that over-charge on recruitment and other documents and processing fees, with the actual placement fees charged to the worker being much higher than what is stipulated in the government directive, and the higher the anticipated income, the higher the placement fee will be
• Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) / Ministry of Labor and Employment (MOLE)


  Historically the main agency of government mandated to pursue the overseas employment option, tasked to develop, promote, regulate, and implement a comprehensive overseas employment program
• Overseas Employment Development Board (OEDB)


  Principally responsible for directly pursuing the country's emerging overseas employment agenda
• National Seamen Board (NSB)


  Created for the purpose of developing and maintaining "a comprehensive program for Filipino seamen employed overseas"
• Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA) (1982)


  Created by virtue of Executive Order 797, the Ministry underwent a major reorganization with the BES, OEDB and NSB subsequently collapsed and their functions absorbed by the newly-created POEA
• In the beginning the intent of government in regulating the overseas employment program in the early 1970s was actually to reduce the number of private recruitment entity-participants in favor of the nationalization of the sector, but the surge in the demand for migrant labor in the Gulf proved to be too much for government to handle by itself creating the conditions that would eventually lead to a reversal of the attrition policy
• Deregulation


  Victor Fernandez said that any proposal to transfer job recruitment to government would be "against the privatization program", and what troubled Angara and Ople was that the government had been putting too much emphasis on its regulatory and control functions to the point that these have ceased to be effective and enforceable, with Senator Herrera even commenting that there are 1.8 million undocumented Filipino workers abroad "who do not want to be regulated by government" and that government cannot handle recruitment and that such an activity "is better left to the private sector"
• Deregulation provisions in RA 8042


  It will strengthen "the protective arms of the government" by liberating it from its earlier mandate of enforcing inappropriate regulations, and "is simply to eliminate the red tape that so many of our workers complain of and this means debureaucratization"
• The sea-based sector had indicated its position to be governed and regulated separately from the land-based sector including the creation of a separate welfare fund for seafarers
• Malacañang may have played a key role in convincing members of the House of Representatives and the Senate to reconcile their differences and eventually accept the deregulation provisions later to be found in SB 2077
• Congress continues to be a generally reactive public policy institution, with its capacity to initiate public policy circumscribed by its electoral-political agenda, and members of the Lower House susceptible to public political outcries such as the one that prevailed over the Contemplacion tragedy
• Senators have a six-year term (the same as the President's), and are more likely to be open to a less reactive position than the members of the Lower House, but the electoral timing of the policy decision can also affect the Senate's attitude
• Congress must develop its own capabilities to evaluate and assess social and national problems and to formulate its own legislative measures and policy alternatives beyond formal-legal terms more as a counterpoint to executive decisions, and can also develop a predisposition to outsource its policy analyses by engaging strategic policy research institutions
• The government will need to develop benchmarks to establish relevant and accurate evaluation parameters for its strategy to deregulate the overseas employment sector, and a code of ethics governing a deregulated policy framework on overseas employment would be a step in the right direction
• • Bureau of Employment Services (BES)