By Ben Rosario With 173 yeas and 11 nays, the House of Representatives passed on third and final reading Wednesday the bill creating the proposed Department of Filipinos Overseas and Foreign Employment. House of the Representatives (Facebook / MANILA BULLETIN) House Bill (HB) No. 5832, entitled the Department of Filipinos Overseas Act, consolidated 39 different legislative proposals authored by at least 80 Lower House members. Under the bill, the new department will be the primary agency under the executive branch tasked to protect the rights and promote the welfare of Filipinos overseas. Batangas Rep. Mario Vittorio Marino defended the bill on the floor as chairperson of the committee on government organization. The bill authors included Majority Leader and Leyte Rep. Ferdinand Martin Romualdez, Deputy Speaker Aurelio Gonzales (NP, Pampanga), Rosemarie Arenas (PDP-Laban, Pangasinan), and Michael Romero (1Pacman party-list). Under the bill, no person involved in the business of recruitment of OFWs can be appointed secretary or a key official of the new department. Once enacted, the new law will authorize the DFO to subsume the functions of the following agencies: Office of the Undersecretary for Migrant Workers Affairs, Commission on Filipinos Overseas, Philippine Overseas Labor Offices, International Labor Affairs Bureau, Philippine Overseas Employment Administration, and the Social Welfare Attaches Office. New department’s functions The new department will be tasked to formulate, plan, coordinate, promote, administer, and implement policies, and undertake systematic national development programs for managing and monitoring the overseas or foreign employment of OFWs. The DFO also assumes the following functions: administer reintegration and social services programs for Filipinos who have worked abroad and are returning to the country, and for their families; and effectively regulate the operations of private recruitment and manning agencies and related business entities involved in the employment of Filipinos abroad to uphold the primacy of the welfare and protection of OFWs, with due consideration of the relevant market conditions. The bill also provides the allocation of P5 billion for an assistance to nationals fund for OFWs in distress abroad. It also establishes the career assistance to nationals corps, similar to the foreign services corps and the foreign trade representative corps. This body will be governed by the Philippine Foreign Service Act of 1991. The proposal also seeks to establish a computer-based management information system of OFWs and provide a One Country-Team Approach that will recommend the recall of all officers of Philippine government posted abroad for acts inimical to the national interest. Part of the DFO's responsibilities is also to prosecute cases arising out of the implementation of this Act, particularly those involving trafficking in persons and illegal recruitment, in coordination with quasi-judicial bodies such as the National Labor Relations Commission and other government agencies such as the Department of Labor and Employment, National Bureau of Investigation, and the Inter-Agency Council Against Trafficking. Rationale In calling for the passage of the measure, Romero, who filed HB 2216, said the proposed department is expected to meet the needs of OFWs, support a comprehensive and continuing development plan for them, and provide adequate funding for their overall welfare. For his part, Romualdez said there is a “pressing need to establish” a department that would manage, harmonize, and strengthen existing policies and programs that would address the needs of foreign Filipino employment. “While we recognize that the government has to prioritize to continuously create local employment opportunities and develop local industries, we shall not overlook the need to serve millions of our overseas Filipinos and ensure the just employment of our migrant workers,” the House official said. Tingog Sinirangan party-list Rep. Yedda Marie Romualdez co-authored HB 3274 with Romualdez.