Message to the 7th Congress of Migrante International
December 16, 2014

The international leadership and all the member-organizations of the International League of Peoples’ Struggle extend their most heartfelt greetings and militant solidarity to Migrante International on its 7th Congress. We admire your victories and want you to reap more successes based on your current strength and your summing-up and planning in this congress.

Your congress theme of “Fight Commercialization and Enslavement of Filipinos Overseas and their Families! Merge the Growing Filipino Migrant Movement with the People’s Surge for Genuine Change” is most important and timely.

It is but fitting for Migrante International to persevere in arousing, organizing and mobilizing Filipino migrant workers to fight against oppression and exploitation and defend and advance their rights and welfare and to promote genuine change and development in the Philippines so that they work in their own country instead of leaving the country and be separated from their families.

Because of the absence of development in the Philippine economy through genuine land reform and national industrialization, millions of our countrymen are forced to work in other countries. It is the Aquino regime’s policy to intensify and accelerate the commercialization and enslavement of Filipinos overseas. It is proof that unemployment has worsened and incomes have been plummeting in the country.

The regime boasts of growing foreign exchange remittances from migrant workers, whose level has reached US$28 billion and about 8.7 percent of the Gross National Product (GNP). This is bigger than the share of traditional agricultural exports. On the whole, the foreign exchange remittances support the families of migrant workers.

After exchanging them for pesos, it is the banks, big compradors and corrupt officials with foreign exchange accounts who benefit from the foreign exchange income of migrants. It is used not for economic development but for perpetuating the system of consumption that is dependent on importing finished goods, debt, stealing and profligacy.

The regime is lying through its teeth when it says that the economy is rapidly growing and there is “reverse migration” or mass repatriation of migrant workers. The GNP growth these past years is due to so-called “hot money” or portfolio investments entering the stock market, bond market and money market that do not create enterprises of employment but earn profits merely through speculation and is easily gone, just as what is happening now.

The reactionary government extracts huge amounts from the migrant workers. Through Administrative Order 31, the Aquino regime has tightened and raised fees under OWWA, Pag-ibig, Philhealth, the Department of Foreign Affairs, airport and other agencies. But government services and benefits given to migrant workers in case of accidents, illness and death and other hazards while they are on contract or no longer on contract are nonexistent or very limited.

The government does not defend and protect the rights and welfare of migrant workers. The Aquino regime turns a deaf ear to demands for it to tell receiving governments to respect migrant workers’ rights. The regime has not implemented the Migrant Workers and Overseas Filipinos Act (RA 10022, amended by RA 8042), Anti-Trafficking in Persons Act (RA 9208) and Overseas Absentee Voting Act (RA 9189).

It provides little or no assistance to migrant workers when they become victims of violence, rape and murder, when their contracts are violated and they are arbitrarily terminated and when they are massively displaced due to war, disorder, restrictions or calamities. Whether work contracts end normally or abnormally, there is no clear and comprehensive plan to reintegrate returning migrant workers.

The effectiveness of your previous efforts to organize Filipino migrant workers and their families in the Philippines can be seen in the fact that you have 30 chapters overseas and 21 chapters in the Philippines. We hope that based on the reports of global coordinators and chapter delegations as well as your congress discussions, you will be able to set the tasks and methods of work to raise your work and struggle to a new and higher level.

Migrante International enjoys tremendous potential in terms of its work, struggle and further victories because some 12 to 15 percent (12 to 15 million if you include the undocumented) of the Philippine population or at least 24 percent of the labor force of around 62 million is abroad. An estimated 30 to 40 percent of Filipinos are dependent on the incomes of migrant workers. Most migrant workers are domestic workers or cleaners in homes and offices, hotel and restaurant staff, health workers in hospitals, caregivers, skilled and unskilled workers in factories, construction and engineering projects and crew members in ships. They come from various parts of the Philippines.

Filipino migrant workers are in more than 200 countries and territories in all continents (Asia, Australia, North America, South America, Africa and Europe). They are most concentrated in the United States (3.5 million); Saudi Arabia (1.8 million); and Canada (639,686). They are also concentrated in the United Arab Emirates, Australia, Qatar, Malaysia, Japan, United Kingdom, Hong Kong and Singapore.

If you can effectively cover the concentrations of migrant workers, you can have the strength and skills to reach those in other countries. You will also find it easier to establish links with migrant workers aboard ships if you can establish centers that serve as offices, stores and lounges all rolled in one in the major ports. It would also be well to have organizations of families of migrant workers in the Philippines and places where migrants can socialize or relax before leaving or upon their return.

We have high regard for Migrante International and we consider it one of the major ILPS member-organizations. We are deeply grateful to Migrante International for assisting the ILPS attain global scope and increasing our worker membership. Your organization is likewise decisive in the ILPS commission for upholding the interests of migrant workers in various underdeveloped countries and in establishing the International Assembly of Migrants and Refugees.

Long live Migrante International!

Long live the migrant workers!

Long live the Filipino people!