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Questioning his opportunity, Senate Minority Leader Franklin Drilon on Monday asked his colleagues to postpone the hearing for the proposed creation of the Philippine Overseas Workers Department.
“I have an open mind for the creation of the department for Filipino workers abroad. The question I ask is: Is this the right time? It is my respectful presentation that this bill can wait for a more opportune moment,” said Drilon during the hearing chaired by the mixed commissions on labor, foreign relations and finance.
He noted that the impetus for the creation of the new agency “comes as the government struggles to obtain funds for the COVID-19 stimulus measures and the purchase of vaccines.”
Drilon stressed that Bill No. 244 of the Senate, Vicente Sotto III, who seeks to adjust the size of the government, must be addressed first to address the issue of the bulky bureaucracy that implies a significant amount of personnel services costs in the annual national budget.
“We will remember that the restructuring bill was mentioned by the President as priority measures in his Speech on the State of the Nation delivered in 2019 and 2017,” he said.
It was also part of the legislative agenda in the Philippines Development Plan for 2017 to 2020 and the Common Legislative Agenda of the previous Congress, he added.
“I respectfully propose that the hearing on the creation of the Department of Filipinos Abroad be postponed until Senate Bill No. 244 is heard before the appropriate committee,” said Drilon.
There are nine bills seeking the creation of the OFW department that are pending at the committee level in the Senate. Its counterpart measure in the House of Representatives was approved last March. –KBK, GMA News
