Prelate: communities should provide 'family atmosphere' for OFWs' children

Some six million children of overseas Filipino workers who live far from their parents need a family atmosphere, and organizations, schools and parishes are the right places for them to get it. Manila Archbishop Luis Antonio Tagle stressed this over the weekend at the Family Congress 2012 in Pasig City, saying that these institutions should be a source of support and "family" to them. “I think it is the responsibility of organizations, schools, even the ‘barkadas,’ the BECs [basic ecclesial communities] to provide some family atmosphere, a home where these persons can be built up, so they will not feel that they are homeless,” he said at a Family Congress last weekend. Excerpts of his talk were posted late Sunday on the Catholic Bishops' Conference of the Philippines news site. Tagle said that to children of OFWs, the family is "lolo, tiya" and, in some cases, television. But he lauded many organizations and groups for working with children of OFWs and "keeping the family fabric alive.” Tagle lamented that poverty has caused displacement and separation among families of OFWs, which affects child-rearing, values and parenting. The CBCP cited an Asia-Pacific Policy Center (APPC) study on the effects of migration on children that showed children who receive less care are more prone to engage in pre-marital sex, take drugs and be victims of physical or sexual abuse. Tagle, who delivered the Congress's keynote address on “Building the Filipino Family,” voiced concern over challenges OFWs’ children will face as future parents, as they grew up with one or both parents physically absent. He said that while it is also good to focus on the nuclear family, there is a need to “stretch our imagination” to reach out to OFWs’ families left in the country. — BM, GMA News