Philippine authorities in Hong Kong on Wednesday started issuing electronically enhanced passports, or e-passports, to all applications for new passports or renewal of expired passports.

Southeast Asia is a rich source of cross-border migrant workers. From member-states of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), about 13.5 million migrant workers have fanned out to work in other countries across the globe. Of this number, over 5 million are working also within ASEAN states.

A migrants’ rights group asked the government on Thursday to finally impose a permanent ban on a “notorious” Saudi Arabian firm implicated in several complaints of illegal labor practices, as well as cancel the licenses of its four recruitment agencies here.

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia — A Cambodian court sentenced a Thai woman and her Philippine accomplice to 30 years in prison for drug smuggling and will allow the woman to keep her newborn son with her behind bars, judges said Friday.

President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo is set to meet on Friday with almost 500 overseas Filipino workers (OFW) who were repatriated back to Manila from various Middle East countries where they encountered problems and became stranded, according to Overseas Workers Welfare Administration (OWWA) director Eduardo Bellido.

A 43-year-old Filipino is now being held in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) for the killing of his Filipina girlfriend in Dubai one month ago.

The Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) has recently launched the Search for Outstanding Filipino Seafarers.

President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo has been and will always be ready to help Filipinos who have been sentenced in foreign lands. In fact, President Arroyo has saved many Filipinos in death row in other countries.

The more than 1,000 Filipinos in Iceland are safe although over 50 of them were stranded when ashes from a volcanic eruption forced airports to close down in several parts of Europe.

With the welfare of the Overseas Filipino Worker foremost in her mind even when she travels anywhere abroad, President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo was able to get the nod of King Juan Carlos I of Spain to help intercede for the commutation of the death sentence of a Filipino domestic helper in Kuwait.