By Sammy F. Martin
MANILA, (PNA) — OFW party list Rep. Roy Seneres on Wednesday proposed the creation of a three-man independent Foreign Exchange Remittance Regulatory Commission mainly to protect and facilitate the flow of the foreign exchange earnings of some 10 million overseas Filipino workers scattered globally.
House Bill 3071, or the “Foreign Remittance Regulatory Commission Act of 2013, ”seeks to empower the regulatory body to adopt, formulate and implement policies on the imposition of fees on fund transfers coursed through banks, private remittance firms, and other remittance agents to prevent imposition of exorbitant service fees and inaccurate exchange rates.
The bill also aims to empower the proposed commission to ensure efficient delivery of remittance services, enhance access to formal remittance channels in the source and destination countries, and improve transparency in remittance transactions.
The proposed regulatory body will be headed by a chair with the rank of a Cabinet Secretary, and composed of two Commissioners with the rank of Undersecretary. With an initial budget of P50 million, this body will be under the Office of the President.
It also requires the Chair and two Commissioners to have competence in the field of law, banking, economics or finance, commerce, accounting or management and active practice in their profession for at least ten years.
They will serve a six-year term of office without reappointment. Also, they shall not be candidates for any elective national or local office in the immediate preceding elections, whether regular or special.
According to Seneres, the Philippines now ranks as among the countries in the world where their overseas workers are contributing the biggest amount of foreign exchange earnings.
Its OFWs contribute an average of billion annually, or about 13.5 percent of the country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP), Seneres said in his explanatory note.
Because of the OFWs’ foreign exchange earnings, the Philippines did not suffer the brunt of the past global and regional financial crisis.
Seneres said in the bill’s explanatory note: “The economic contribution of OFWs has helped reduced poverty incidence and increased the welfare of their families in the Philippines. These remittances send children to schools, build decent houses, sustain health, and even create small and medium businesses. “All these lead to the improvement of the socio-economic status of overseas Filipinos’ families and help produce economic growth and development,” the former ambassador to the Middle East turned politician stressed.