‘Di na kailangang maging OFW: Stella Quimbo says Cha-Cha will lead to more jobs

By Billy Begas

Deputy Minority Leader and Marikina Rep. Stella Luz Quimbo said amending the restrictive provisions of the 1987 Constitution will reduce the number of Filipinos working abroad.

Quimbo, one of the sponsors of Resolution of Both Houses no. 2 (RBH 2) said the country lacks capital to create more jobs.

She cited the 2.2 million overseas Filipino workers as evidence of the need to bring in capital, and stressed that “dahil kulang ang kapital sa ating bansa, kulang din ang trabaho para sa ating kababayan.”

According to Quimbo, “when a country’s domestic capital is lacking, we simply need to look for more foreign business partners; unfortunately, our laws are too restrictive to allow the inflow of foreign capital.”

RBH 2 seeks to amend several provisions of the Constitution to allow Congress to make necessary amendments when needed.

She explained that Charter change will bring the country in a better position to compete for foreign investments, which we are already losing to our neighbors.

“If we don’t address this, many more Filipinos will have to leave their families, and look for jobs abroad,” she stressed.

RBH 2 is now pending on second reading at the House of Representatives.

In the study “COVID-19 Crisis Through A Migration Lens” by the World Bank and the Global Knowledge Partnership on Migration and Development (KNO- MAD), it said that migrant workers remittance flows to low- and middle-income countries like the Philippines could drop by around 20 percent from US$554 billion to US$445 billion due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The study observed that “migrant workers tend to be particularly vulnerable, more than native-born workers, to losses of employment and wages during an economic crisis in their host country.”

Since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, the government has brought over 400,000 OFWs home.

Source: Latest Politics News Today (Politics.com.ph)