How the Philippine government protects it's overseas workers

In the Philippine’s you see the term OFW all the time. It stands for Overseas Filipino Worker. The OFW’s are a major source of income for the country. This year they have remitted over $16.2 billion back home. They have a separate line in Manila airport immigration and seem to be encouraged. There are whole range of benefits offered to OFW’s by the government.

Filipinos work abroad on ships, on oil platforms, as maids and many other things. I think 95% of all the workers on both freighters and cruise ships worldwide have to be OFW’s. We always see them on the streets of Copenhagen in the summertime buying expensive presents to take home.

These obviously poor foolish OFW’s need protecting says the government here, in particular the maids. In Hong Kong and Taiwan the OFW maids are sought after and popular. The Philippine Daily Inquirer reports that a new law says that to protect them filipinas going to work in Hong Kong and Taiwan have to receive government training before they are allowed to leave the country.

This all sounds good doesn’t it? The only thing is that the extra 2 months training time for hiring filipinas is causing a switch over to Indonesian maids instead. The agencies specializing in hiring filipinas to Hong Kong are noticing huge drops in inquires and many cancelled contracts. The worst thing is that the law also requires filipinas already working abroad to go back home for the same training.

So basically by doing what governments do (protection racket) the unintended consequences were the same as they always are when governments meddle - the people loose out.

What I don’t understand is how the government of the Philippines even thinks it can be allowed to mess with private contracts that take place in Hong Kong. While there is obviously a lot about this I do not understand, the outcome is most definitely the same.