Legal aid for OFWs broadened

The Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) has announced that overseas Filipino workers facing charges for labour-related offences in their host-countries may soon be able to use the legal assistance fund for overseas Filipino workers (OFW).

DFA officials said a revision of the guidelines was being made to help as many overseas workers as possible. They said more than 2,000 OFWs are now detained, serving sentences, or have pending cases abroad.

The present version of the guidelines provides that only those who are facing criminal charges can avail themselves of the government's legal assistance fund. They added that the new guidelines provided that the assistance fund would likewise shoulder the mandatory "blood money" in offences against persons in the Middle East.

Under the old guidelines, the DFA could only subsidise the litigation expences of an OFW with a pending case in a lower court. The DFA Legal Department is allowed to spend only a maximum of $2,500 per case, which, officials said, is "very restrictive." Officials said this problem has been the major cause of delays in many court proceedings, with the bulk of the fund being spent on the hiring of lawyers as well as the various miscellaneous legal fees.