Labor and Employment Acting Secretary Manuel G. Imson today stressed that the adverse impact of the Malaysian crackdown against illegal migrants, as well as the new Japanese visa rules, are expected to be at a nil and minimal level in view of the continued preference for skilled and documented overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) in these two OFW host economies and in the world.

In a joint conference of the Departments of Labor and Employment (DOLE) and Foreign Affairs (DFA), Imson, in particular, acknowledged a "positive and encouraging gesture on the part of the Malaysian government on its opening of a hotline for migrant workers, including OFWs, to encourage them to complain against any abuses and maltreatment they may have received from employers."

On the other hand, the labor and employment acting chief said that while Malaysia is also set to accept Filipino migrants, specially those who voluntarily left the country earlier under its amnesty offer, the Japanese economy, notwithstanding the new visa rules, will continue to prefer OFWs, adding that many Filipino overseas performing artists (OPAs) are expected to continue to make it to Japan as legitimate entertainers under the new visa rules as a result of more stringent procedures in their testing, certification, and deployment.

"Let it be clear that as host countries of OFWs, we are not losing these countries yet as they are even set to accept skilled and documented OFWs needed by their economies," Imson emphasized.

The joint DOLE-DFA presscon at Roxas Boulevard, Manila hosted together by Imson and Foreign Affairs Undersecretary Jose Brillantes came even as Malaysian Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi in Kuala Lumpur publicly acknowledged that the Philippine economy is now on the upswing under the leadership of President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo.

The Malaysian Prime Minister gave assurances that the Malaysian government shall apply its immigration laws "fairly and humanely" not only on the documented OFWs already in the country, but even on undocumented Filipino workers still there. Mr. Badawi also agreed in consensus with the Philippines, in line with the support it had manifested to the Malaysian effort to resolve illegal migration, that both countries should "establish a mechanism via which the issues can be properly and expeditiously addressed." Malaysia's "determination" to protect the rights and welfare of undocumented migrants was reiterated in substance by Malaysian Home Affairs Minister Datuk Azmi Khalid.

According to Imson, the Philippine Overseas Labor Office in Kuala Lumpur (POLO-KL) indicated that the Malaysian Human Resources Ministry had set up the new hotline facility, which OFWs, and other migrants documented or undocumented, may access at tel. nos. 03-8888-9111 on office hours.

The POLO cited a Malaysian media report that Malaysian Minister Datuk Dr. Fong Chan Onn has pledged that his office shall investigate any complaints filed by foreign workers via the hotline. The Malaysian newspaper The Star quoted the minister as saying, "we have assigned staff to attend to these calls." According to the newspaper, any foreign workers who thus "feel that their employers have cheated them of their wages may call the said hotlines." The said ministry had set up the hotlines in response to some 100,000 Indonesian illegal migrants who alleged that their employers did not pay them their wages.