Migrante International condemned the Department of Migrant Workers’ (DMW) request for an additional ₱1.3 billion for 2026, calling it the “home of traffickers” of overseas Filipino workers (OFW).

Its statement on September 13 said the department that profits from thousands of toiling overseas Filipino workers (OFW) should not receive funding. As the country’s main promoter of the labor export program, the DMW deserves to be defunded because its only role is to sell Filipinos to work in countries with low wages and jobs which are prone to abuse, instead of protecting migrants.

The funds will only go to waste because they will be used to manage the selling and exploitation of migrant workers in collusion with recruitment agency syndicates and to fatten up corrupt government officials’ pockets, the group said.

As the chief broker of cheap Filipino labor to other governments and companies, especially to imperialist US and its allies, the department has already deployed almost 1.8 million Filipinos abroad this year.

The DMW fragmentizes 8,700 families every day, just to strip them of dignity and violate their rights. This number will surely rise with the 28% increase in the agency’s budget, the group explained.

“The DMW cannot tout itself as the ‘Home of OFWs’ while refusing to provide meaningful assistance to victims of trafficking and exploitation abroad,” the group said. Meanwhile, the scamming recruitment agencies and consultancy firms involved in human trafficking remain free from accountability.

Instead of providing long-term jobs in the Philippines, the government has expanded its machinery for implementing the labor export policy down to the local level. The plan is to set up DMW offices in the regions with a ₱700 million budget to further expedite and ease sending Filipinos abroad. This will result in more cases of abuse, it said.

Migrante cited the OFWs sent to South Korea as agricultural workers through the local government in North Luzon, and Filipino college students in Visayas who sank into debt after joining the study-work program in Taiwan.

According to the group, the DMW is as riddled with corruption as other Philippine government agencies. From the Marcos Sr regime to the Arroyo regime, past administrations used the Overseas Workers Welfare Administration (OWWA) funds as campaign money for the ruling party.

Migrante International is calling for the junking of the labor export program and to do away with the corrupt ruling system that facilitates it.