CBCP: OFWs can be missionaries

The Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) virtually reversed its stand against the flight of Filipinos searching for jobs abroad, saying overseas workers could be "missionaries of the Catholic faith" and help the Church in its mission to spread the Word.

The perception of the CBCP on the migration of workers as an "attack on Filipino families" changed after it hosted a weeklong dialogue with some 50 representatives of various Filipino ministries and overseas workers organizations at a retreat center in Tagaytay City, through its Episcopal Conference on Migrants and Itinerant Peoples (ECMI).

CBCP president Archbishop Angel Lagdameo admitted the bishops’ "notion on Filipino diaspora has been redefined" after they were given a clearer picture of the "new situation" of OFWs.

"Coming from a predominantly Catholic Christian country, these migrant Filipino workers in search of livelihood could be equipped with the disposition and skills of lay missionaries, who will not necessarily preach, but live the Gospel of Jesus in the context of cultural and religious pluralism," Lagdameo said in his homily during the closing Mass of the Fifth International Consultation on Filipino Ministry Worldwide last Saturday.

"They are Filipinos in dialogue with other cultures and religions, which for them would be a new way of being Church and a new way of being in mission, beyond adding to the number of church-goers in the receiving Churches which have fallen victim to materialism and secularism," the prelate added.

Lagdameo also said the flight of Filipino workers could be a "providential coincidence" for the Church whose missionary priests and religious sisters, he noted, "have started to dwindle."

The CBCP earlier called on the government to focus on programs that would raise job opportunities in the country to prevent flight of Filipino workers, who "have become part of our social concern."

"How many of them are made to suffer because they are deprived of employment rights, their salaries or travel documents unjustly withheld? How many of them, mostly women, are abused, assaulted or sexually harassed by employers? How many of them suffer the pain of isolation, alienation and discrimination? And need we talk about the innumerable cases of broken families and conjugal infidelities?" asked Lagdameo, as he enumerated the concerns of the Church with the migration of Filipinos.

At the CBCP dialogue, Lagdameo said it’s about time to look at the "positive aspect" of the global migration of Filipinos.

"Along with our smiling faces, we are offering to the receiving countries or Churches, our Christian Faith lived in the context of different cultures and religions. This positive aspect is likewise the new challenge of the Filipino diaspora. It is both a challenge and a concern," Lagdameo noted.

It was learned during the dialogue that about 10 percent of the population of the country, or roughly eight million, are OFWs in 193 countries. Half of them are in the US, where over 85,000 more Filipinos continue to migrate every year.

"Two million Filipinos have already made the Middle East their home. Would you believe that 30 percent of the entire population of Malaysia, that is 900,000 are Filipinos?" Lagdameo asked.

Of the 140,000 in Hong Kong, he said, a majority are Filipina domestic helpers.

In Italy, only one half of the more than 1 million Filipinos are listed; the same is said of the one million in Japan, he added.

"These few examples are only a portion of the migrant Filipinos we find present from America to Asia, from Africa to Oceania, from Russia to Australia and also from Jordan to Saipan," Lagdameo said.— Edu Punay