I vote ‘Yes’ to this measure, Mr. President. 

In reality, the main challenge is not to expand the coverage of the Legal Assistance Fund, but to increase its funding. 

It is not about having more slices out of the pie, but how to make that pie bigger.

Because the current year’s P200 million budget makes the LAF so laughable, —excuse the pun—that it drives OFWs who need it, and so with our diplomats who come to their aid, to tears, not of joy, but of frustration. 

If we add the P1 billion Assistance To Nationals or ATN Fund to the LAF, the total lifeline fund for Filipinos in distress in foreign lands is P1.2 billion a year.

And P1.2 billion is .00007 percent of the P1.698 trillion overseas Filipinos sent home last year. The ATN-LAF shares one characteristic with the coronavirus: They can only be seen through a microscope.

In fact, if we will put a meter on the flow of funds from OFWs, the P1.2 billion is what they send in five hours. Limang oras na remittance lang po. 

LAF alone is an hour’s worth of their pera padala. 

If, for example, LAF will be raised out of remittances from one country, it will only take our kababayans in Italy seven days to raise the P200 million.

The above is the important backdrop against which this measure should be viewed. OFWs remit cash, and they expect a rebate in kind.

No, they’re not expecting a red carpet treatment, nor a brass band to welcome them home, only that when they find themselves in trouble, government will not ghost them, but will be there to help.

After all, they are amortizing the premium of their emergency insurance with every cash remittance they make. 

Oftentimes, we relegate their remittance record to the business pages of our papers, in prose as exciting as the one on the stock market ticker. 

Lost in the headline and the bottomline are the nuances that capture how big the remittances are if dissected by country of origin. 

Halimbawa na lang po, di ba nakakabilib ang gross sales ng Jollibee, that Filipino multinational company? In 2018, P161 billion mula sa gabundok na benta ng Chickenjoy at iba pa. But that P161 billion is less than what Filipinos working in Saudi Arabia and UAE sent home last year, which was about P191 billion. 

Ang gross revenue ng ABS-CBN na P40 billion in 2018, anim na buwan lang ‘yan na remittances ng mga Pinoy sa UK.

Manila Water? Its 2018 gross sales of P18.5 billion is five months’ worth of remittances of our Bagong Bayanis in tiny Qatar. 

And Filipinos in Singapore sent P24 billion more to their loved ones than the P74 billion Cebu Pacific grossed in 2018. 

If Filipinos in each country will be collectivized into a corporation, and their remittances reckoned as earnings, many of these will land in the top 100 companies in the land. 

With increasing remittances come the duty to increase the resources that can be tapped to help Filipinos who have run afoul of the law or away from abuse in foreign lands.

And their numbers are on the rise as well. 

The last time my staff waded through their tales of misfortune and pain in 1,084 pages of a DFA collation of reports from 81 posts, we discovered that at least 3,827 Filipinos were languishing in jails in 52 countries.

Ito po ay ‘yung sa end of 2016. Hindi pa kasama sa talaang ito ang 4,452 Filipinos na sumasailalim sa imbestigasyon. 

As to reason, illegal drugs topped the list, responsible for putting 2,265 Filipinos in foreign jails, of which 130 were in death row in 11 countries.

Tila po yata mayroong Pilipinong may problema in every time zone, from high up in the Andes, to countries in the Pacific. 

Tila po yata mayroong Pilipinong may problema in every time zone, from high up in the Andes, to low-lying countries in the Pacific.

Pero ang pinakarami, yung humanitarian cases, either fleeing from dangerous workplaces or abusive employers, and those seeking medical help.

From funds drawn from ATN, the average assistance given per overseas Filipino was about $200 in 2018, and about 101,000 were extended help.

From the LAF, the average was about $1,000 each for the 3,735 Pinoys served. 

Kung di ninais na nagkulang sa pansin, ang dahilan ay kulang sa pondo.Because out there in the frontlines, thoughts and prayers are not enough. Mercy missions require money.

Mr. President:

Again, I vote ‘Yes’ to this measure, with the appeal that instead of just increasing the number of slices, we enlarge the pie.