The past two decades saw the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) of the Philippines actively engaging with several countries of destination on issues relating to the promotion and protection of migrant labor. This is evidenced by the resurgence of use of bilateral labor agreements (BLAs) to regulate existing flows and to open new labor migration flows. As demand for certain types of expertise of Overseas Filipino Workers (OFWs) continue to rise and as deployments overseas remain unabated, the forging of BLAs has become one of the enduring features of government intervention to cope up with the complexities of migration across borders.

BLAs are formal agreements, in written form, entered into by the Philippines with countries of destination to govern deployment, labor cooperation on the protection and promotion of rights and welfare of OFWs, and human resources development (DOLE, 2018). In this context, BLAs provide the Philippine government with opportunities to enable migration flows to be more transparent, more predictable and more formalized as a mutually shared undertaking with destination countries.

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Title: A REVIEW OF BILATERAL LABOR AGREEMENTS CONCLUDED BY THE PHILIPPINES WITH COUNTRIES OF DESTINATION: TOWARD A FRAMEWORK FOR MONITORING AND EVALUATION
Researcher: Bernard Paul M. Mangulabnan || Carl Rookie O. Daquio