Filipino overseas workers group rejects bank plan

Manila: An organisation of overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) in Canada said they are opposing the plan of President Gloria Arroyo to set up the first OFW bank in the country.

"The government should stop trying to fool the migrant workers that they are genuinely serving the interests of OFWs. It should instead focus on protecting and promoting their rights," Roderick Carreon, chairman of Canadian-based organisation Siklab, said in a statement.

Siklab said Arroyo's plan to establish an OFW bank will not benefit them and she should instead implement economic programmes to stop the exodus of Filipino workers overseas in search of better economic opportunities.

The government says around 2,000 Filipinos leave for other countries daily.

On March 31, Arroyo announced plans to establish the first OFW bank as part of government efforts to help overseas Filipino workers remit their earnings conveniently through postal systems here and abroad, and at lower service rates.

She said the "newest service" was an offering to "our new heroes and greatest workers in the world," who sent a record high of $11 billion in remittances to the country last year.

"So that we can help our OFWs in saving and sending their money back home, we will make the Philippine Postal Savings Bank (PPSB) an OFW bank," she said during a recent roundtable discussion with government officials in the Presidential Palace.

PPSB president Rolando Macasaet said the bank will be renamed Philippine Overseas Postal Bank and the OFW bank will open in three to six months.