*Dr. Rodolfo John Ortiz Teope, PhD, EdD, DM
I have heard and read too many stories that begin with hope and end in silence. As a researcher, an educator, and a friend of many Overseas Filipino Workers (OFWs), I have learned that these stories are not isolated incidents—they are patterns. One story that continues to haunt me is that of a woman sitting in a narrow government hallway, clutching a brown envelope that contained everything she had left: receipts, affidavits, and promises written on cheap paper. She trusted a recruiter who told her that a better life awaited her abroad in Italy. The job never existed. The recruiter disappeared. What remained were debt, shame, and a question she never asked aloud: Where was the government when I needed it most? When Republic Act No. 11641 created the Department of Migrant Workers (DMW), I wanted to believe that stories like hers would finally come to an end.
The creation of the Department of Migrant Workers was born out of decades of frustration. For years, migrant worker protection in the Philippines was fragmented across multiple agencies—POEA, OWWA, DOLE, DFA—each holding a portion of responsibility but none exercising full accountability. In my research and in my classrooms, the same concern repeatedly surfaced: when something goes wrong, no single institution truly owns the problem. RA 11641 promised to correct this by establishing one department that would serve as the clear institutional home for migrant worker protection.
However, as I examined the law more closely and listened to the lived experiences of OFWs and their families, I learned that reorganizing offices is not the same as fixing a broken system. Agencies were merged, but processes were largely left intact. The same forms, the same approvals, the same waiting—only now under a larger department. For an OFW who must take unpaid leave simply to follow up a complaint, or for a family that borrows money just to travel repeatedly to government offices, very little has changed. Red tape was centralized, not eliminated.
The law also struggles with authority. Although the DMW was created to lead migrant worker protection, the Department of Foreign Affairs retains control over embassies and diplomatic decisions, while the Department of Labor and Employment continues to govern domestic labor policy. During overseas crises—detentions, abuse cases, mass layoffs, or emergency repatriations—the same painful question emerges: Who is really in charge? In emergency situations, confusion in command results in delayed responses, and delay often translates into prolonged suffering.
Trust is further weakened by unresolved issues surrounding the Overseas Workers Welfare Administration (OWWA). OWWA funds are not government donations; they are mandatory contributions taken directly from OFWs themselves. Yet even after OWWA was placed under the DMW, RA 11641 failed to meaningfully reform its governance. Transparency remains limited, OFW participation in decision-making is weak, and accountability is largely internal. Many OFWs continue to ask a simple but deeply personal question: Where does our money really go?
The most serious defect of RA 11641, however, lies in what the law did not give the Department of Migrant Workers—law-enforcement power. Despite being the primary agency mandated to protect migrant workers, the DMW has no authority to arrest illegal recruiters, investigate trafficking syndicates, conduct surveillance, or lead criminal operations. Its powers are confined to administrative actions such as license suspension, blacklisting, and referral of cases to other agencies.
This creates a disturbing contradiction: the agency closest to migrant suffering is legally the weakest in stopping the crimes that cause that suffering. In my research on illegal recruitment and human trafficking, it is evident that these crimes are organized, transnational, and increasingly digital. Syndicates recruit through social media, operate across borders, and disappear quickly. Administrative penalties do not deter organized criminals. One cannot dismantle a criminal network with paperwork alone.
Instead, criminal enforcement is left to the Philippine National Police, the National Bureau of Investigation, the Department of Justice, and the Inter-Agency Council Against Trafficking. While these agencies play crucial roles, RA 11641 does not clearly position the DMW as a lead or command agency in anti-trafficking operations. As a result, cases are delayed, passed from office to office, and weakened by jurisdictional confusion. Criminals exploit these gaps. Victims wait—often too long.
This weakness is rooted in how the law frames trafficking and illegal recruitment. Rather than treating them as organized crimes and national security threats, they are often approached as labor or welfare concerns. When crimes are framed softly, responses also become soft. Intelligence-driven operations are limited, surveillance is weak, and action tends to be reactive rather than preventive.
Operationally, the law also falls short abroad. Based on reports, data, and sustained conversations with OFWs, labor attachés, and welfare officers, they remain overstretched and under-resourced. Institutional reorganization did not automatically translate into more personnel, better logistics, or faster assistance. Delays in helping distressed workers are often not due to lack of compassion but to a system burdened beyond its capacity.
When OFWs return home, another gap becomes evident: reintegration. While RA 11641 speaks of reintegration, it does not establish a strong, enforceable system to guarantee employment, recognize skills gained abroad, or ensure sustainable livelihoods. Many OFWs return only to prepare for another departure. Migration becomes a cycle rather than a choice.
Equally troubling is the limited voice of OFWs in shaping the policies that govern their lives. RA 11641 does not mandate meaningful OFW representation in decision-making bodies. Policies are crafted for migrant workers, but rarely with them. As an educator and researcher, I have learned that policies designed without stakeholder participation often fail at the point of implementation.
Even accountability remains unclear. The law provides no clear performance metrics, no public scorecards, and no concrete benchmarks to determine whether the Department of Migrant Workers is truly more effective than the system it replaced. Without measurement, accountability weakens. Without accountability, reform becomes symbolic.
Beyond these institutional and enforcement defects lies a deeper and more uncomfortable implication. By creating a Cabinet-level department whose sole purpose is to manage and protect overseas employment, the state effectively gives legal and policy endorsement to the exportation of Filipino labor. In doing so, RA 11641 implicitly admits a painful economic reality: that the Philippine economy, as currently structured, cannot consistently provide enough high-paying, dignified jobs for its people at home.
Laws do not merely regulate; they communicate priorities. The creation of the Department of Migrant Workers does not challenge the labor-export model—it professionalizes it, stabilizes it, and normalizes it. While the law speaks the language of protection, it quietly concedes that overseas employment is no longer a temporary necessity but a long-term economic pillar. In effect, the State tells its workers, "We will protect you abroad, because we cannot yet guarantee that you can thrive here."
By institutionalizing labor migration through a permanent department, RA 11641 transforms labor export from an emergency response into a normalized state function. This is perhaps the most sobering defect of the law, because it reflects not only governance failure but also an unresolved national development crisis. Protection becomes a substitute for transformation. Management replaces reform.
I do not argue that RA 11641 is a bad law. I argue that it is an unfinished one. A department created to protect migrant workers but deprived of enforcement power is structurally incomplete. Organized crime cannot be defeated by coordination alone. Traffickers cannot be stopped by sympathy without authority. And a nation cannot claim progress if its best solution is to send its people away and manage the consequences.
True protection requires more than good intentions. It
requires power, accountability, courage, and a serious commitment to building
an economy where Filipinos no longer need to leave in order to live with
dignity. Until these defects are addressed, the Department of Migrant Workers
risks becoming a larger institution managing the same old suffering—while, in
quiet government waiting rooms, the stories continue to be told, one brown
envelope at a time.
*About the author:
