Secretary of the Department of Labor and Employment, Silvestre Bello III, interviewed in one of the Metro Manila radio station this morning, was asked about OFW reintegration. He replied that the program was in placed. However, he was talking about diverting the repatriated OFWs to other countries such as Germany, Czechoslovakia, etc. Truly this is not a reintegration program. The OFW Ewintwgration program I knew was from OWWA and Landbank which in anyway not a program but just a loan.
A true reintegration program needs to be legislated, provides technical and financial assistance, and most specially not selective or the eligibility shall be less rigid to enable 100% of returning OFWs be able to avail of the assistance.
Let us take for example, the minimu loan is Php 300,000 with an equity of 20% from the borrower which is equivalent to Php 60,000. How many of the repatriated OFWs have this cash on hand? Some do not even have some cash to pay for their airfare, that is why the OWWA assisted them. The question is, what really?