Many unskilled and low-skilled workers prefer facing risks abroad, where they earn much more, than suffer nearly slave labor wages in the Philippines, a legislator said on Thursday.
ACT-CIS Rep. Jocelyn Tulfo, vice chairperson of the House overseas workers affair committee, in a statement said the unskilled and low-skilled workers' pay locally “is only slightly above slave labor rates.”
“How can any Filipino family live decently on less than P300 or P400 a day here in our country?” she asked.
She added: “Our country should be upgrading the household service workers so they can work in skilled positions in hotels and hospitals, instead of homes. More dignified work for them. More importantly, we really should fix our minimum wage system which I think is one of the lowest in the world.”
With the latest total of overseas Filipinos’ remittances from January to November hitting $30.3 billion for a 4.1 percent growth, Tulfo said she was optimistic the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas would see the 2018 total of $32.213 billion surpassed when the 2019 full-year figures come in.
“OFWs in Kuwait this year have sent home more remittances but the new partial deployment ban would affect remittances in the next months,” she added.
Tulfo also said: “The OFWs can easily set a new record in the $33 billion to $34 billion range because since 2017 they have been remitting over $3 billion every December.”