TFC and CFO renew ties for overseas Filipinos in 2015 and beyond

QUEZON CITY, Philippines - July 21, 2015 - PRLog -- Driven by a common mission to support overseas Filipinos (OF) in their chosen, second homes outside the Philippines, the premier Filipino network The Filipino Channel (TFC) and the leading  government institution that promotes policies, programs & projects with Migration and Development as framework,  the Commission on Filipinos Overseas (CFO), will come together once more to renew their ties in formal ceremonies tomorrow, July 22, 2015 at the Eugenio Lopez Jr. Communications Center (ELJCC) in Quezon City, Philippines.

CFO and TFC, partners since 2011, are set to sign a memorandum of agreement (MOA) that will seal their commitment to Filipinos who may have decided to live in their chosen destinations as migrants but are still eager and willing to be development actors both in their host and home countries.

The MOA covers the core programs of CFO led  by the Migrant Integration and Education Division Education  (MIED), under which falls the agency’s Pre-departure Orientation Program (PDOS) which TFC has been supporting since 2012.  These years of partnership  generated projects that went beyond the frontline service  such as the Global Summit of Filipinos in the Diaspora (GSFD); the Month of Overseas Filipinos held  December of every year; and the Return and Reintegration Summit in the Philippines; and includes CFO's support for TFC's campaign to propagate the overseas voting.

CFO Chairperson Secretary Imelda Nicolas says: “We have other areas of engagement and involvement which are equally as important as MIED like the government’s anti-human trafficking campaign, the return and reintegration of migrants, diaspora philanthropy, arts, culture and educational exchanges.    We need TFC’s support to spread the word on these programs.”  She adds, “We have noted that TFC’s reach has grown ten-fold in the past years and that means we are able to raise the awareness regarding our programs of more and more overseas  Filipinos, wherever they may be.”

Ailene Averion, ABS-CBN managing director for Asia Pacific affirms: “There are over 10 million Filipinos around the world which for me translates to 10 million possibilities of the type of synergy we can do together with CFO.”  She emphasizes, “Our partnership now goes beyond the focus that was the PDOS and now covers CFO events in and outside the Philippines as well as key advocacies that concern migrants.  We see a lot of valuable interaction between us, not only  in terms of program promotion,  but also in the valuable insights we get from CFO to help us create content which will find resonance in the lives of our overseas kababayan.”

With the renewal of ties, CFO and TFC hope to enable OFs to play a more participatory and meaningful role even when they are based outside the homeland.