A migrant group wants presidential candidates for the 2010 elections to pledge to apportion a yearly budget for the Overseas Workers Welfare Administration (OWWA), an attached agency of the Department of Labor and Employment (DoLE) that serves about 10 million overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) and their dependents.

Migrante said in a statement that it is high time that the next government includes OWWA in the yearly budget allocation of the national government in order for the agency not to rely solely on the OFWs fund.

“Right now, OWWA’s operating expenses are taken from the OFWs trust fund now reaching to about P13B. There is no single amount coming from the national government,’’ said John Leonard Monterona, regional coordinator of Migrante Middle East.

“The OWWA, as the premier welfare-based agency should have a sound fiscal status especially for welfare programs and services for OFWs on-site and their dependents back home,’’ he added.

Monterona claimed that despite the lavish remittances that the Philippine government are getting from the OFWs, the OWWA is yet to suffice the overseas workers with its welfare programs and services.

He lamented that welfare programs and services for the OFWs are not sufficient especially after the OWWA Board of Trustees implemented the OWWA Omnibus Policies, a codified policies that were adopted after Pres. Arroyo assumed the Presidency in 2004.

Citing OWWA’s 2002 figure, he said the agency allocated only a meagre 11 percent from its yearly budget for its major programs and direct benefits to OFWs and families, 43 percent for service operation cost and 27 percent for its staff on-site wages and allowances.

He said OWWA’s budget allocation system has put the OFWs and dependents on a losing end. (with a report by Pam Brooke A. Casim)