A senator on Wednesday submitted a bill that seeks to deploy social welfare attachès in all Philippine embassies to help distressed overseas Filipino workers (OFWs).
Senator Joel Villanueva authored Senate Bill No. 1819 or An Act Establishing The Office For Social Welfare Attaché following the reported suicide of two OFWs in Saudi Arabia and Lebanon.
“We believe that having permanent social welfare attachés in our embassies can help prevent incidents of suicide and cases of abuse against our modern-day heroes,” Villanueva said.
The bill calls for all Philippine embassies to have social welfare attachés to manage cases of OFWs in distress and coordination with different agencies to ensure psychosocial needs of distressed OFWs are addressed.
The Department of Foreign Affairs seeks to investigate the death of two OFWs working as household service workers (HSWs) in Saudi Arabia and Lebanon.
In a statement, DFA said initial reports claim that the two OFWs took their own lives.
The Philippine embassies in Riyadh and Beirut are set to continue coordinating with investigators “to see to it that there was no foul play in the deaths of the two Filipina domestic workers.”
