They are called the country’s “modern-day heroes.” They are the estimated 8.1 million overseas Filipino workers and migrants in 194 countries and territories all over the world.

Of the total, 3.2 million are permanently living abroad and 3.6 million are temporarily working overseas. Illegal migrant workers are estimated at 1.3 million.

Labor Secretary Patricia Sto. Tomas said overseas Filipinos have become an emerging economic class of Philippine society, bringing in $8.5 billion in remittances in 2004 — the highest level since 1970, when highly paid professionals first entered the labor market overseas. The remittances made up about 9.2 percent of the country’s gross national product.

Records of the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas show that since September 2005 remittances from land-based OFWs have reached P6.71 billion, up from last year’s. By year-end the total is expected to hit over $10 billion.

Time and again, the overseas Filipinos’ dollar remittances have propped up the country’s economy.

But the impact of their contributions is even more significant this year, when the economy felt the fallout from the political crisis that had gripped the Arroyo Administration.

The role of the OFW in keeping the economy healthy makes him or her the hands-down choice of The Manila Times as its Person of the Year.

The Times editors considered several other movers and shakers as Person of the Year, including President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo and the Filipino athletes who gave the Philippines the overall title in the 23rd Southeast Asian Games.

Making the choice

The Manila Times launches its Man of the Year award to honor Filipinos who have made great contributions to the nation. The Times, together with the Kaisa Para sa Kaunlaran Foundation, also conducts the yearly Jose Rizal Awards for Excellence to recognize and honor outstanding Chinese Filipinos. More than 40 outstanding Tsinoys have received the awards since 2002.

Of the total number of OFWs abroad, about one million have found work in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Other countries with large concentrations of Filipino workers are the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Oman and Qatar in the Middle East; the United Kingdom and Italy in Europe; the United States and Canada in North America; and Japan, Hong Kong, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan and Malaysia in Asia.

The overseas employment program was initiated in 1974 by the statesman Blas F. Ople during his stint as labor secretary. To carry it out, he created the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration to serve as the program’s regulating agency, and the Overseas Workers Welfare Administration, its welfare arm.

Ople also created a corps of private fee-charging recruitment agencies to help the government scout for labor markets for Filipino workers. More than a thousand licensed placement agencies are now operating in the country.

To give greater protection to the OFWs at the job sites, Ople also created a corps of labor attachés and welfare officers in countries worldwide. Welfare centers were created to serve as the homes of runaway maids and other distressed workers.

The Department of Foreign Affairs opened an office for migrant workers’ affairs, which renders legal and repatriation assistance to OFWs with problems. The office played a lead role in the release of OFWs abducted by extremists in some countries and in the evacuation of workers affected by disasters and internal conflicts in their host countries.

All documented workers are insured as members of the Philippine Health Insurance Corp. The OWWA gives them predeparture loans and livelihood loans. A halfway house was established at the OWWA Building for arriving OFWs, especially those from the Visayas and Mindanao, who cannot go home immediately for lack of transportation.

Saudi Arabia top OFW drawer

Since Sept. 26, the country has sent almost 14,000 OFWs to 170 host destinations more than the 711,813 that were deployed in September of last year.

Citing data from the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration, Sto. Tomas said the biggest number of OFWs is still in Saudi Arabia, making up 26 percent of the 209,293 land-based OFWs deployed in various countries during the first quarter of 2005.

Next to Saudi Arabia are Hong Kong with 28,006 OFWs, or 13.3 percent of the total deployed land-based OFWs; United Arab Emirates with 9.47 percent (19,817); Japan with 8.22 percent (17,213); Taiwan with 5.8 percent (12,222); Kuwait with 5 percent (10,216); Singapore with 4 percent (8,660); and Qatar with 3.4 percent (7,193).

In terms of demand for land-based OFWs, Qatar registered the highest increase, employing 50 percent more than the 4,793 Filipinos it hired in the first quarter of 2004.

Other countries with marked increases in their demand for OFWs are:

• Bahrain, 49 percent (1,810 to 2,693)

• Kuwait, 24 percent (8,213 to 10,216)

• Malaysia, 21 percent (1,748 to 2,114)

• UAE, 15.4 percent (17,172 to 19,817)

• United States, 13.6 percent 1,074 to 1,220)

• Singapore, 12.8 percent (7,678 to 8,660)

Sto. Tomas said at least 6 percent of Filipino families receive income from abroad; 6 out of 10 of these families live in urban areas and are relatively better off. It’s no wonder, therefore, that migrant workers and their families are regarded as the new middle class.

With the number of overseas employment and the volume of OFW remittances growing, the country managed to generate a consumer-led economic growth amid recession and high unemployment, Sto. Tomas said.

Money is not the only thing our migrants abroad have brought home. They have also brought honor and fame to the country.

Melitza Anne Chan, a 27-year-old nurse from Manduriao, Iloilo, works as assistant to the chief of the Dental Department of the Marabi Hospital in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.

Chan was recently commended for honesty after reporting to her bank some 10 million Saudi riyals (around $2.6 million or more than P150 million) erroneously credited to her own account. Chan had first discovered the 10 million Saudi riyals in her account while applying for a visa to the United Kingdom.

Arthur Lucas, a trainee-worker in South Korea, demonstrated world-class skills in a construction event that won for him second prize, proving once again that Filipinos have the capability to compete in the global arena.

Lucas won at the 13th Construction Association of Korea Competition on Korean Construction Techniques, held recently in Seoul.

He was awarded a plaque of appreciation and 700,000 won ($674). Lucas was the only Filipino among four foreigners and 276 Koreans who joined the competition.

He competed with 27 other contestants in the rebar category.

But if there are OFW winners, there are also losers. A Department of Foreign Affairs “global situationer” report has counted 4,775 Filipinos being held in foreign prisons, a quarter of them women.

One of those in jail is Guen Aguilar, who is languishing in Singapore’s Changi Women’s Prison for the alleged murder of her best friend and fellow Filipina, Jane La Puebla. Parts of La Puebla’s dismembered body were discovered in two places in the city-state.

Sto. Tomas said the  Department of Labor and Employment is providing all assistance possible to all jailed OFWs in parts of the world.

She said the Philippine Overseas Labor Office in almost all the Philippine diplomatic posts abroad see to it that the OFWs who have had brushes with the law in their host country are given legal and humanitarian assistance.

Homecoming gifts

In recognition of the OFWs’ contribution to the country, President Arroyo recently honored outstanding OFWs by presenting them with the coveted 2005 Bagong Bayani Awards.

The Bagong Bayani Awards is an international search recognizing OFWs for their efforts in fostering good will, enhancing and promoting the image of the Filipinos as competent, responsible and dignified workers, as well as their contributions to the development of their communities and the country as a whole.

This year’s awards had four categories: Outstanding Employee; Community and Social Service; Culture and Performing Arts; and the Blas F. Ople Award para sa Natatanging Bagong Bayani.

Leading the Bagong Bayani Outstanding Employees was Kuwait-based Zenaida Batillano, a recipient of the OFA Presidential Citation for her courage and leadership during the Iraqi conflict in 2003.

Batillano is also the founder of an organization that collects donations for disaster victims.

The other outstanding employees are seaman Lugen Ortillano, Melvin Malvar of Northern Marianas Islands, Jaime King of Saudi Arabia, Veronica Ugates of Libya, George Palencia of Saudi Arabia, Marlon Joseph Molina of United Kingdom and the Filipino crew of the MV Merino Express, who earned the esteem of the Australian Government and the livestock exporting community by keeping alive their cargo of 56,000 livestock while battling extreme heat and thirst during a voyage that lasted 86 days.

Receiving the Bagong Bayani for Community and Social Service were Jesse James Agustin, chief technical assistant in the Ministry of Development in Brunei, who established the international office of the Social Security System for OFWs; Leonor Mohammad Gile, who worked with the Philippine Consulate in Jeddah without expecting anything in return in solving the problems of OFWs against their employers; and the Filipino crew of the MV Stolt Capability, who received the Lloyds List International Rescue at Sea Award by helping rescue the crewmen of a sinking Vietnam-registered ship.

The Bagong Bayani Award for Culture and Performing Arts went to the photographer Gerico Canlapan, whose works are presented in group exhibitions in Riyadh and used to produce a calendar that benefited the Gawad Kalinga program.

In Ka Blas’ memory

Besides the Bagong Bayani Outstanding Employee Award, Zenaida Batillano also received the Blas F. Ople Award para sa Natatanging Bagong Bayani for being the only Asian woman in her company’s top management level who influenced the hiring of Filipinos for supervisory and management positions. She also led the Filipino community in managing the Iraqi crisis in 2004 and became its pillar of strength and courage.

Following tradition, the President on Dec. 23 welcomed the OFWs returning to the country for Christmas. She handed out gifts, including a mobile livelihood store each to four lucky OFWs.

One of them was Alicia Gabasa Ponce, who comes from Jordan, Iloilo. She worked for 14 years as midwife at the Al-Fakkih Hospital in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.

The Overseas Workers’ Welfare Administration also reached out to the less fortunate OFWs, choosing an OFW family from each region in the country to be given goods and a livelihood project, Sto. Tomas said.

She said all the arrival counters of the OWWA at the NAIA, Cebu, and Clark international airports are now manned by a complement of workers’ assistance officers who will be on continuous duty in three shifts to facilitate the arrival and exit from the airport of returning OFWs.

“These OWWA assistance officers will be on the job until the last arriving flight on Dec. 31, 2005, and from Jan. 1 to 15, 2006, when the workers are expected to return to their jobs, the same officers will be on hand at the predeparture lounge to assist and send them off,” she said.

OWWA, together with the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration and Phil-Health, has set up kiosks and satellite counters in Robinsons Galleria, Fiesta Duty Free, and in SM in Cebu, Iloilo, and San Fernando, Pampanga, where OFWs can renew their membership in OWWA, pay membership fees to Phil-Health, and file for Overseas Employment Certificates.

Sto. Tomas said the POEA has also set up the Balik Manggagawa Express Clearance Delivery System at its central office in Mandaluyong City.

(The Manila Times)