OFWs Left in Legal Limbo: Advocacy Paper Says DOLE's Dispute System No Longer Covers Overseas Workers — and Nobody's Fixed It
There's a bureaucratic gap quietly screwing over millions of overseas Filipino workers — and a new advocacy paper is sounding the alarm. The Department of Labor and Employment's dispute resolution system, called SENA (System for Efficient and Enforceable Negotiated Agreements), was designed to settle labor disputes quickly. But since the Department of Migrant Workers (DMW) split from DOLE into its own separate department, the old rules technically no longer apply to OFWs.
The paper, titled "Resolving OFW Grievance Efficiently, Fairly and Justly," lays out the problem: the DMW, being an independent department, is no longer bound by DOLE procedures originally created through the National Conciliation and Mediation Board. Yet no one has bothered to create a replacement system tailored to the unique challenges of overseas employment — leaving OFWs in a legal no-man's-land when disputes arise.
It gets worse. Settlement agreements reached at Migrant Workers Offices abroad are "often disregarded or ignored" by the NLRC and regional DOLE offices, the paper says. Documents marked "seen and noted" are not considered legally binding, and the NLRC insists on sworn statements that many settlement documents don't meet. Para sa OFW na nagko-compromise abroad, parang walang halaga ang napirmahan nila.
The proposed fix: the DMW should develop its own SENA framework with implementing rules tailored to overseas employment. Crucially, the paper recommends deputizing labor attachés and welfare officers as notary publics — giving them the authority to administer oaths so that settlement documents signed abroad become legally enforceable back home.
With over 10 million Filipinos working overseas and sending home billions in remittances every year, the fact that their labor dispute mechanisms have quietly fallen through a bureaucratic crack is, frankly, embarrassing. The DMW needs to step up and close this gap before more OFWs discover — too late — that their signed agreements mean nothing in Philippine courts.
Source: The Manila Times
