COTABATO CITY, Philippines – A Department of Labor and Employment (DoLE) regional official is lobbying for the exemption of overseas workers in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) from the national wage cap of the $400 monthly wage abroad.

ARMM-DoLE Regional Secretary Myra M. Alih has particularly sought the ARMM’s Legislative Assembly to pass a resolution asking the national government to allow aspirants for foreign works from the autonomous region to receive less than the $400 wage cap.

“Majority of our applicants for overseas works including domestic household jobs are willing to receive less that the national DoLEprescribed monthly wage of $400,” Alih said at the weekly Tapatan sa ARMM media forum here recently.

Alih said there are about 7,000 overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) from the ARMM to be affected by the Saudization policy of the Arab Kingdom, and “one way to cushion the effects of the imminent mass displacement is for them to work elsewhere below the $400 wage limit required by the DoLE central office.

In Malaysia, she said, her office had earlier forged an arrangement with Malaysian authorities and employers assuring to hire household workers from the ARMM with a wage below the $400 ceiling.

For other countries, Alih said, such exceptional scheme is not being allowed by national authorities, including the DoLE hierarchy.

In Surigao City, meanwhile, DoLE Secretary Rosalinda Baldoz assured the public that not all of the 1.5 million OFWs in Saudi Arabia will lose their jobs due to the Saudization policy because most of them are highly skilled.

“Don’t believe that 1.5 million of our workers in Saudi Arabia will be affected,” Baldoz said in Pilipino during the 68th Caraga Regional Development Council meeting in Surigao City over the weekend.

Baldoz said the labor secretary of Saudi Arabia had promised her during their meeting in Geneva last June that the kingdom will continue to hire migrant workers because the construction of mega-cities will begin in 2014.

She explained that Saudi Arabia is giving its nationals priority in the workforce because of the continuing protests in Middle East countries like Tunisia, Egypt, Yemen, Libya, and Bahrain.

Baldoz said large firms in Saudi Arabia are hiring more highly skilled workers.