VILLAR CALLS FOR ENHANCED COUNSELING
SERVICES FOR DISTRESSED OFWS

Senate President Manny Villar, President of the Nacionalista Party, renews his earlier call for the labor authority to provide enhanced counseling services to overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) in the light of the increasing number of incidents and crimes involving OFWs.

In the last couple of years, Villar in his capacity as Vice Chairman of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, has expressed alarm over the deaths of OFWs all over the worldfrom Singapore to Spain.

Villar cites, I understand that the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) sends social workers to help distressed OFWs. I just dont know if they do that on a regular basis, which I think they should, not only when problems arise. I urge DOLE and the DSWD to continue sending social workers to provide counseling and other assistance to our OFWs. We should seriously consider the counseling needs of our OFWs particularly those who are undergoing emotional and mental anguish for various reasons, Villar further cites. According to Villar, OFWs are confronted with various challenges, difficulties and hardships that may cause mental or psychological anguish and other negative emotions. With sufficient and regular emotional and spiritual support from social workers or other experts, they can better cope with whatever they are going through. These past few years, a number of OFWs in Asia, Europe and the Middle East have died for various reasons such as suicide and murder. Moreover, there are OFWs who were not victims but the perpetrators of the crimes. These include a Filipina maid who admitted to killing her ward (a young boy) in Kuwait. Among the other high-profile incidents in the last couple of years involving OFWs include Jane Lapuebla who was killed in Singapore by another Filipina, Guen Aguilar; a Filipino in Dubai, United Arab Emirates (UAE) reportedly killed by a Filipina; a Filipina in Singapore who died after falling off from the sixth floor window sill; Ivy Bautista who was reportedly killed in Santander, Spain.

These incidents should prompt our OFW welfare groups to actively provide psychological as well as spiritual counseling to OFWs whether they are mentally or psychologically fit to work and live far away from their loved ones. Not everyone is cut out for working away from home, adds Villar.