BARMM law for welfare of Bangsamoro OFWs approved 

COTABATO CITY --- The Bangsamoro parliament has approved the Overseas Bangsamoro Workers Act meant to ensure the welfare and protection from abusive employers of constituents working abroad.

Regional Labor Minister Romeo Sema said Friday the Overseas Bangsamoro Workers Act (OBWA) was approved on third and final reading Thursday by the 80 member Bangsamoro Transition Authority, or BTA.

The BTA is more known as the interim parliament of the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao, which is led by Chief Minister Ahod Ebrahim.

“This is a regional law that also aims to set up facets for needed interventions like livelihood and psycho-social support for overseas Filipino workers who are from BARMM provinces and cities,” Sema said.

The Ministry of Labor and Employment-BARMM covers the provinces of Maguindanao, Lanao del Sur, Basilan, Sulu and Tawi-Tawi and the cities of Cotabato, Lamitan and Marawi.

There are thousands of Muslim and Christian OFWs from BARMM’s core territory, among members of non-Moro indigenous communities.

The OBWA, focused on addressing issues and concerns besetting OFWs from the region, is something that two defunct Moro-led regional governments --- the Marcos-era Lupong Tagapagpaganap ng Pook in Regions 12 and 9, and the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao --- never had.

The two erstwhile autonomous governments had law-making bodies composed of legislators from the provinces now covered by the still 27-month BARMM.

There are high statistics of cases of maltreatment by employers of OFWs from BARMM that the regional government needs to address, according to Sema.

The controversial Sarah Balabagan, jailed in the United Arab Emirates from 1994 to 1996 for killing her Arab employer who molested her, hails from Barangay Simuay in Sultan Kudarat town in Maguindanao, about 12 kilometers northwest of Cotabato City.

The life story of Balabagan, then an adolescent who worked abroad to help sustain the needs of her family, was portrayed in a movie in 1997.

Peace advocacy and women’s welfare advocates in Central Mindanao, among them North Cotabato Vice Gov. Emmylou Taliño-Mendoza, got elated with the passage of the OBWA.

“That is good. We have OFWs from 63 barangays in our province that are now part of BARMM,” Taliño-Mendoza said.

Residents of the 63 predominantly-Moro barangays in North Cotabato voted in favor of the inclusion of their villages into the territory of BARMM during a plebiscite in 2019 for the ratification of the region’s charter, Republic Act 11054, or the Bangsamoro Organic Law.

Mendoza said she is ready to help disseminate to the public the intricacies of the regional law and how OFWs in the 63 barangays can benefit from it.