Senator Estrada pushes for summit to address OFW layoffs

MANILA, Philippines — In the wake of the global economic meltdown Senate President Pro Tempore Jose "Jinggoy" Estrada called Thursday for an emergency summit to address of concerns overseas Filipino workers (OFWs). Estrada said the summit must particularly address the potential massive layoffs of Filipino workers abroad due to the global economic slowdown. "This is a very serious situation, however the government tries to downplay it. We are faced with a scenario where hundreds of thousands of overseas-based Filipinos might be forced to return to the country where they might not be able to find jobs either," Estrada said in a press statement on the Senate website (www.senate.gov.ph). He said his labor committee can spearhead the summit, along with the House of Representatives' labor and employment committee chaired by Valenzuela Rep. Magtanggol Gunigundo. Estrada chairs the Senate Committee on Labor, Employment and Human Resources Development, and the Joint Congressional Oversight Committee on Labor and Employment. He noted the admission by the Department of Labor and Employment that the layoff trend is on the rise, as some 946 OFWs were reportedly retrenched from Taiwan's manufacturing industry; 75 from Western Australia's shipbuilding industry; 300 from the casino-hotel industry of Macau, almost a hundred from the hotel industry of Italy; and 200 Filipino seafarers from different foreign vessels. "We must hold an emergency summit to be participated in by concerned government agencies, local and foreign industry players as well as OFW groups to find ways to address the effects of the layoff trend, or at the minimum, to mitigate its impact," he said. Estrada also cited accounts from the Asia Pacific Mission for Migrants(APMM) and Migrante International that the number of OFWs displaced due to the crisis has actually reached thousands already. There are apprehensions that so many others among the more than eight million Filipino workers abroad might be laid off in the next weeks to come as more and more foreign companies had announced planned cutbacks on number of employees. But he said the situation is not as helpless as it seems, citing the availability of hundreds of thousands of jobs in several other foreign and local industries, provided that Filipino workers acquire the skills needed by such industries, and that the government directly assist in the workers' training or re-training and employment-matching. - GMANews.TV