LONG-TIME OFW champion Susan “Toots” Ople will take her advocacy to the next level when she takes command of the newly created Department of Migrant Workers.

Ople’s mission to make the lives of Filipino migrant workers and their families better is a tough task to handle. She will be taking over a department that has no funding, no organizational structure and no staffing pattern. But this cancer survivor who has been to countless battles is unfazed.

“Nothing stops us from working with the agencies already existing and putting together a team that would segue into the team of the department,” Ople said. “I have always been able to work with different people in different agencies. I come to this position with an open mind.”

Ople said President-elect Ferdinand Marcos Jr. has instructed her and Labor Secretary Bienvenido Laguesma to collaborate in making sure that there will be no disruption in the services for OFWs.

When the department becomes fully constituted with a running budget and a staff of its own, the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA) will cease to exist and will serve as the backbone of the new DMW.

What will remain of the POEA, said Ople, are its functions and most of the personnel who have been with the agency for years.

The Overseas Workers Welfare Administration (OWWA), meanwhile, is also one of the agencies that are now attached to the DMW, a line department created by a law signed by President Rodrigo Duterte only in December 2021.

The DMW will hold office at the POEA building named after the late Blas F. Ople, a former senator, former secretary of foreign affairs, a giant on the labor front and the incoming secretary’s father.

“That is the most practical and logical thing to do. Most of the OFWs are already familiar with the POEA (building). It is strategically located with the (Metro Rail Transit Line 3) there. It is very accessible,” Ople pointed out.

In the next six months, the Migrant Workers secretary will ensure that once the DMW gets its funding in 2023 it will be “running at full speed”

Ople’s first order of business is to consult with the stakeholders so that everybody has a common vision for the department.

“In NGO (non-governmental organization) parlance we talk about co-creation in developing projects. I want to have a cocreation phase with the stakeholders especially the OFW,” she said

Ople said she will review all the systems and weed out unnecessary steps and fees.

“Why is it difficult for good (foreign) employers to get a Filipino (worker) in the same way bad employers sometimes have an easier time getting a Filipino worker. There is something wrong with the system so we need a systems review,” she pointed out.

There will also be programs for the families of the OFWs which President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. emphasized when he tapped her to head DMW.

“He is cognizant of the social cost wherein a child will grow up without the presence of one of the parents. He would also like the department to develop programs to take care of the families,” she said.

In her first month as secretary, Ople plans to create a task force against human trafficking and illegal recruitment.Her aim is to change the narrative of the OFW.

“Right now, a Filipino migrant worker has not yet left for his foreign employment; already he is seen as a welfare case. I would like them to leave as dignified as possible. It’s an informed choice, not a rash decision. It’s an informed choice to be made together with the family. So that mindset I want to bring to the table,” Ople said

“I want to tell them, yung OFWs, don’t see yourself as pitiful because certainly we don’t look at you that way. What we want is all of us are architects of our own economic recovery, so you are part of the economic recovery,” she added.

She said labor mobility “is here to stay and there is nothing wrong with that.” “People go where the jobs are, people go where their families will be financially sustained and resilient. We are all part of the global supply chain,” Ople said.