To say that COVID-19 hit the world with shock and awe is an understatement. The World Bank, in its 2020 Global Economic Prospects, predicts that the global economy will shrink by 5.2% this year – “the deepest recession since the Second World War, with the largest fraction of economies experiencing declines in per capita output since 1870.”

The Philippines is known as a predominantly migrant country of origin with more than 10 million Filipinos living abroad. In 2019, the Central Bank of the Philippines or the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) reported that remittances of overseas Filipinos for 2019 amounted to US $ 33.5 Billion. The BSP said these remittances accounted for 9.3 percent and 7.8 percent of the gross domestic product and gross national income, respectively.

With the pandemic, the Philippine migrant sector is one of the worst hit. Since February this year, urgent calls for repatriation have been received by the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) from all parts of the world. It began with calls from the Filipino community in Wuhan, China. Since then, the DFA had to embark on a repatriation program of such magnitude which the country has never seen before. Overseas Filipinos are returning not by the hundreds but by the hundreds of thousands. This is the first of its kind in the history of the 122 year old foreign affairs department.

As I write this piece (25 July 2020), the DFA has already facilitated the repatriation of more than 102,000 overseas Filipinos, most of whom are Overseas Filipino Workers (OFWs). They came from all parts of the world. More than 58,000 of them are land-based workers mostly coming from the Middle East and close to 44,000 are sea-based mostly from cruise ships. They came home because they lost their jobs and means of income due to the onslaught of COVID-19. For land-based workers, their jobs were affected by the economic recessions and lockdowns implemented in their countries of destination while many sea-based workers had to come home because their cruise ships had to stop operations following the closure of borders of most countries. For some fisherfolk, they were stranded in international waters for several months since no country allowed them to dock. All of these Filipinos were in distress and coming home was the only alternative left. It is expected that another 100,000 OFs will come home in the next two months.

In one of the Congressional inquiries in aid of legislation and oversight on the whole of government response to the plight of our overseas Filipinos, House Speaker Alan Peter Cayetano divided government response into five phases: 1) RELIEF; 2) REPATRIATION; 3) RECOVERY; 4) RETURN; and 5) REINTEGRATION. These five phases are the different stages of COVID-19 migration management that is being examined by the Committee on Accounts chaired by Deputy Speaker Michael Defensor of the House of Representatives. Among these five phases, perhaps the most challenging part is the fifth and last phase – reintegration. Reintegration entails finding jobs or means of livelihood for the returning OFWs at a time when there is a worldwide economic recession.

COVID-19 crisis RELIEF is primarily the function of DFA’s more than 90 embassies and consulates around the world. Together with the Philippine Overseas Labor Office (POLO) of the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) and the Overseas Workers Welfare Administration (OWWA), and following the one-country-team approach, the heads of posts, through the Ambassadors in embassies and the Consuls General in consulates, led the country team in giving relief. In posts which have no POLO or OWWA, the embassy or consulate solely attends to the COVID-19 relief response of Filipinos overseas. Relief comes in the form of giving food packs, financial assistance, shelter, and eventually repatriation.

The job of REPATRIATION is a task given to the DFA by the COVID-19 Inter-Agency Task Force (IATF) on the Management of Infectious Diseases. The DFA facilitates the repatriation of overseas Filipinos by coordinating with their employers, local manning agencies and countries of destination to ensure that the proper clearances are obtained. In many cases, particularly for sea-based OFWs, it is the local manning agencies or cruise ship owners which pay for the repatriation. For land-based, documented OFWs meanwhile, their repatriation is funded by their employers. For undocumented workers and other overseas Filipinos who have no means of paying for their return ticket (i.e. distressed overseas Filipinos), it is the DFA which pays for their airfare using its Assistance to Nationals (ATN) Fund. In countries where there is a big number of undocumented Filipino workers or distressed Filipinos, the DFA charters a plane to bring home its citizens, again using its ATN Fund.

The RECOVERY phase is primarily managed by OWWA, Bureau of Quarantine (BOQ) of the Department of Health (DOH), Department of Transportation (DOTr) and its attached agencies, Department of Tourism (DOT), and Bases Conversion Development Authority (BCDA) with the assistance of other government agencies. The recovery phase is under the auspices of the IATF Chief Implementer, Secretary Carlito Galvez, Jr. while Deputy Chief Implementer, Secretary Vince Dizon is the one to be credited for shortening the quarantine process from two weeks to 3-5 days. Any returning Filipino is required to undergo an RT-PCR test in the airport and will have to undergo mandatory quarantine in a hotel facility pending the release of their negative results. If they test positive, they are brought to a strict quarantine facility or a medical facility depending on their state of health. The swab test and hotel quarantine of all OFWs are free.

The RETURN phase of OFWs is primarily the responsibility of OWWA, DOTr and DILG. The return of overseas Filipinos needs the indispensable cooperation of the local governments where they will be returning to. Each local government unit has their own policies on returning overseas Filipinos but there is one particular local government that is worth commending for shortening the recovery and return phases. The Provincial Government of Pampanga fetches their own constituents at the airport and conducts their swab testing and quarantine in Pampanga. Hence, once they test negative, they can immediately return to their homes.

The REINTEGRATION process is the primary responsibility of the DOLE together with OWWA and the National Reintegration Center for OFWs. Together with the Labor team, TESDA, DTI, OFW Bank, and the National Anti-Poverty Commission (NAPC) have a bundle of programs for returning OFWs. Loan packages, livelihood programs, and financial assistance are made available for them. The main challenge, however, is to be able to find a genuine alternative means of income so that they will be able to survive this pandemic.

I always see the COVID-19 pandemic as a reset button in migration management. The pandemic has shown the gaps and weaknesses of our migration management system and it is giving us a chance to strengthen policies and institutional linkages. Moreover, there are many silver linings to this pandemic. First, it has effectively stopped trafficking in persons since travel has become very difficult. Second, it became a catalyst for some countries of destination to provide amnesties for undocumented migrants and to allow their safe return to their countries of origin without immigration penalties or in the alternative, to help these migrants regularize their status. Third, it has facilitated the return of many skilled workers who bring with them world class technology that can help us in our Build Build Build projects as well as innovative ideas that will be much needed in our other industries.

A year from now, when there is already a vaccine and we have a new world that has overcome the pandemic, we will look back at this time of exodus as a time when the Philippines seized the opportunity to improve its migration management; a time when it has perfected its COVID-19 response for overseas Filipinos as a benchmark for future contingencies; and a time when we were able to rise as one from this temporary setback.

https://www.worldbank.org/en/news/press-release/2020/06/08/covid-19-to-plunge-global-economy-into-worst-recession-since-world-war-ii

http://www.bsp.gov.ph/publications/media.asp?id=5290