Enhanced Welfare Services for Overseas Workers

May 1, 1983

LETTER OF INSTRUCTIONS NO. 1320

ENHANCING WELFARE SERVICES FOR OVERSEAS WORKERS

WHEREAS, overseas employment has been a boom to development by way of easing unemployment and providing precious foreign exchange earnings; casia

WHEREAS, overseas employment has also given rise to numerous welfare problems expeditiously and promptly in order to maximize the gains achieved from overseas employment and to preserve the present share of the overseas labor market.

NOW, THEREFORE, I, FERDINAND E. MARCOS, President of the Republic of the Philippines by virtue of the powers vested in me by the Constitution do hereby direct that you:

1. institute through the Welfare Fund For Overseas Workers a system of gratuity for workers permanently disabled while employed overseas;

2. institute an annual Bagong Bayani Awards for exemplary service or performance of Filipino workers overseas and to organize a foundation for this purpose;

3. organize families of overseas contract workers into family circles for productive income generating and socio-cultural endeavors in coordination with other concerned agencies;

4. establish a summary system for adjudicating overseas employment cases with a view to setting them expeditiously and judiciously;

5. require workers to be properly briefed about their overseas work conditions, the laws, customs and practices of the receiving countries, and their responsibilities as workers and Filipinos in a system of pre-departure orientation briefing; cd i

6. ensure that only workers with valid employment contracts duly processed by the MOLE are allowed to leave for overseas employment, on the basis of which their departure shall be given due course by the Commission on Immigration and Deportation.

7. establish a special unit to attend to the concerns of female overseas workers in coordination with appropriate agencies; and

8. establish model employment contracts compatible with the rules and regulations of each receiving country with the end in view of ensuring the best possible terms and conditions of employment and enforceability of employment contracts of Filipino overseas workers.

9. establish, together with the Ministries of Foreign Affairs, Health and Justice a simplified and direct authentication process for the document of overseas workers, so that their faster deployment may be assured and our lead market position in the overseas job market may be maintained. cdt

DONE in the City of Manila, this 1st day of May, in the year of Our Lord, Nineteen Hundred and Eighty-Three.