House approves OFW department bill

Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, March 11) — Lawmakers on Wednesday approved a bill that seeks to create a new agency for overseas Filipino workers called the Department of Filipinos Overseas and Foreign Deployment.

The House of Representatives approved on third and final reading House Bill 5832 also known as the "Department of Filipinos Overseas (DFO) Act" with 173 votes. Meanwhile, 11 members rejected the measure. No one abstained.

The measure stated that the new department will serve as the primary agency that will protect the rights and welfare of OFWs such as through regulating deployment to other countries and pursuing illegal recruitment cases.

If approved by the Senate and signed into law by the President, the department will be led by a Secretary along with five undersecretaries with several functions - administration and finance, foreign employment, diaspora engagements and special concerns, assistance to Filipinos overseas in distress, and policy agreements.

The agency will take over the functions of the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration, the Office of the Undersecretary for Migrant Workers' Affairs of the Foreign Affairs Department and the all Philippine Overseas Labor Offices under the Labor Department among others. It will also supervise the Overseas Workers Welfare Administration as its attached agency. Employees from the said offices will be absorbed by the new department, the bill said.

Two similar bills are currently pending at the Senate.