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MANILA, Philippines -- More Filipinos will be compelled to find jobs overseas due to rising prices of commodities, but they will also face abuses because of the lack of a strong migrant rights protection program, the overseas workers’ organization Migrante warned.
Migrante-Middle East, in a statement from Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, said on Wednesday the economic uncertainties facing millions of unemployed Filipinos left them only one real option, to find work abroad even if it means accepting low wages and abusive conditions.
John Leonard Monterona, Migrante-ME’s regional coordinator, noted that 2.9 million new graduates joined a labor force weakened by rising food and fuel prices.
Unemployment was reported at 8 percent in April 2008, compared to 7.4 percent in the same month in 2007.
He blamed the Arroyo administration’s “wrong economic policies” for the spike in the unemployment rate.
The migrant leader said the more government subscribes to the “neo-liberal” policies of globalization, deregulation and privatization, the more labor-exporting has intensified. This, in turn, has resulted in more and more Filipinos experiencing labor and human rights abuses from foreign employers, he said.
He accused the Arroyo government of giving more value to the billions of pesos remitted by overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) rather than the workers’ their rights and welfare.
He expressed fears the scheduled Global Forum on Migration and Development in October 2008 in Manila would focus only on labor-exporting policies rather than on practical solutions to protect OFW rights and welfare.
