I had the honor to Head of the Philippine Delegation in the 13th Global Forum on Migration and Development (GFMD). This year’s chair is the United Arab Emirates and due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the forum is being held virtually.

On January 20, 2021, I co-chaired Roundtable 3 - Leveraging New Technologies to Empower Migrants. The other Co-Chair is Principal Secretary Peter Tum of the State Department for Labour, Republic of Kenya. The Roundtable was well attended by States, International Organizations, Business Mechanisms, Non-Government Organizations and the Youth. Below are the most pertinent parts of my Opening Statement which talks about how our OFWs have found empowerment and political power in social media.

In the Background Paper written by Professor Gibril Faal, he mentions that 73 million citizens or 67% of the total Philippine population are internet and social media users. Social media as a new form of technology has become part of the migration management of the Philippine government.

While social media is a double edged sword which can be used to empower or to silence, to be a catalyst for truth or a medium of propaganda, or to bring change or to perpetuate the power of old guards, the migration story and the Philippines’ use of social media leans more on the positive side.

I wish to share three points:

1. Social media has become the voice of migrant Filipinos;
2. Social media has become a tool in migration governance; and
3. Social media has become a bridge between government and Filipino migrants during this COVID-19 pandemic.

First Point: Social media has become the voice of migrant Filipinos

Even before 2016, the migrant sector of the Philippines has been considered one of the strongest and influential sectors of society. This is precisely the reason why as early as 1995, the Philippines enacted the Migrant Workers’ Act. But in 2016, Filipino migrants found their political power in Facebook when they decided to do a social media campaign for a mayor from a city in the Southern Philippines. This mayor, at the onset, had no money, no oligarchs backing him up, and no political patrons who were supporting him. His people’s campaign mainly revolved in social media and much of the help came from organic movements spearheaded by many of the migrant Filipino communities around the world. The Filipino migrants in May of 2016 were able to help catapult into Presidency the first social media President, a people’s president in the person of Rodrigo Roa Duterte. Overseas Absentee Voting results show that an overwhelming 72% of votes cast or close to ¾ of the migrants votes were for him.

Henceforth, the country’s migration team has been proactively monitoring social media to be able to render assistance to any migrant in distress. Government saw how social media can help in monitoring migrants in distress.

The voices of migrants have been heard and their needs addressed through government assistance. Since 2018, the Department of Foreign Affairs’ budget for assistance to nationals operations was increased by 150%. The Assistance to Nationals Fund grew from 8.3 million to 20.8 million US dollars while the Legal Assistance Fund rose by 100% from 2 million to 4 million US dollars.

Second Point: Social media has become a tool in migration governance

The Philippine government learned from our migrants. In 2017, all 94 Foreign Service Posts of the Department of Foreign Affairs had to open Facebook Pages, Twitter, and even WeChat accounts depending on which social media platform is allowed in the country of destination to be able to bring the people’s government closer to our migrants.

Filipino community meetings have also been broadcasted on Facebook Live to have a wider reach and broader interaction.

Moreover, it has not been uncommon for migrants to tag or message a public official directly to ask for help or air their concerns.

It is not uncommon that we, in government, hear migrants from all over the world on Facebook Live addressing the President and asking for his intervention for their urgent concerns and heartfelt pleas, may it be for repatriation, financial assistance, or justice. Our migrants call our President, “Tatay Digong,” a sign of reverence and familiarity. Tatay means father and Digong is the President’s nickname. Those calls for assistance are not left unheeded. The Office of the President and respective government agencies like the Department of Foreign Affairs monitor these calls and act on them with haste.

Third Point: Social media has become a bridge between government and Filipino migrants during this COVID-19 pandemic.

The Department of Foreign Affairs has a dedicated social media page named “OFW Help” or “Overseas Filipino Workers Help” that is dedicated for emergency cases of all Overseas Filipinos and Overseas Filipino Workers and their families. It serves as a 24/7 social media hotline for all Filipinos around the world and their families who are in the Philippines.

During this pandemic, OFW Help has held 48 online Filipino community meetings since April 2020 and one live Filipino community event that was broadcasted via Facebook Live last December 30, 2020 when a Philippine team visited the Kingdom of Bahrain. That visit had the highest viewership of all town halls which has reached more than 74,000 views. The Filipino population in Bahrain is only over 50,000. This is possible because these community events are viewed by Filipino migrants and their families from all over the world. It is our way to assess the situation of our people, alleviate their needs, and ensure that they know that they have not been forgotten by the Philippine government.

Government social media platforms have helped the Philippines to bring home more than 411,000 migrants as of January 18, 2021. Social media has helped us reach out to distressed Filipinos in countries where there is no Philippine government presence. A case in point was the chartering by the Philippine government of a plane to bring home our stranded migrants in Uzbekistan where we had no embassy or honorary consul.

Communication gurus keep on repeating that information is power and the medium is the message. At this most crucial time, when there is a second wave of infections and borders are once again closing, the Philippine government continues to stand ready to make our migrants feel that not only our 94 embassies and consulates around the world are within reach, but the Capital is just one click away.

The Philippines, as a country of origin often prides itself with providing the gold standard for migrant protection. But we want to go beyond rhetoric. We want to go beyond figures. We want to be felt. We want to be heard. We want to be seen. We want to be in solidarity with our migrants. And new technology has brought us to this place.

This, ladies and gentlemen, is the Philippine social media migration story.