In his first State of the Nation Address in 2016, President Duterte revisited one of the promises he made during the campaign period: the creation of a department for overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) that "shall focus on and quickly respond to their [OFWs'] problems and concerns." Soon after, five versions of the bill proposing for the creation of a single migration department-variously referred to as the Department of Overseas Filipino Workers, or the Department of Migration and Development - were filed in the House of Representatives and the Senate. In his second State of the Nation Address in 2017, the president did not forget OFWs: "We now talk about our overseas Filipinos. They are our heroes. They and their families have sacrificed much to the..for the country. We all know how a large part of our ecnomic - economy comes from their remittances. That is why to ensure that their rights are protected, I ordered the increase of our assistance to the OFW from 400 million pesos to more than 1 billion." In December 16, 2020, he certified as urgent the bill that creates what is now called the Department of Overseas Filipinos and Migrant Workers or DOFMW.

The Philippine Migrants Rights Watch (PMRW), a registered civil society network established in 1995 to encourage the recognition, protection and fulfillment of Filipino migrants' rights, is heartened by President Duterte's attention to concerns and interests of OFWs. Reviewing the different versions of the bill, PMRW came up with a position paper on September 9, 2016 indicating that the proposed single department will not necessarily be a better alternative to address the challenges of migration governance.

Various discussion and fora on the proposed department had been conducted in the past years. Despite some changes and updates here and there, the fundamental reservations of PMRW remain based on the following reasons:

1) Will the proposed department do better than the current system?

First and foremost, it is not clear what specific gaps in migration governance the new department will fill as well as gaps which cannot be solved under the current system. While the early versions of the bills do not touch the core functions of the two agencies the migrants mostly deal with (i.e. the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration or POEA and the Overseas Workers Welfare Administrationor OWWA), parts of both entities are among those which will be transferred to the new department. A recent House version of the bill specifically mentions the abolition of the POEA, OWWA, the Commission on Filipinos Overseas (CFO) and other attached agencies of the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) and the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA). The reason for absorbing the different offices into one department is to reduce migrants' time and efforts in going to different agencies. This notion of a one-stop shop does not warrant a new department. The One-Stop Shop Service Center, which was launched at the POEA in August 2016 and which has been established in all regional offices of the DOLE and POEA, are sufficient for this purpose.

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