5/28/2020 E-Library - Information At Your Fingertips: Printer Friendly This constitutional protection afforded to labor articulates in clearer and more concrete terms the constitutional policy under Section 18, Article II that declares and affirms labor as a primary social economic force aimed at protecting the rights of workers and promoting their welfare. On the other hand, R.A. No. 8042 provides, among others: (b) The State shall afford full protection to labor, local and overseas, organized and unorganized, and promote full employment and equality of employment opportunities for all. Towards this end, the State shall provide adequate and timely social, economic and legal services to Filipino migrant workers. xxxx (e) Free access to the courts and quasi-judicial bodies and adequate legal assistance shall not be denied to any person by reason of poverty. In this regard, it is imperative that an effective mechanism be instituted to ensure that the rights and interests of distressed overseas Filipinos, in general, and Filipino migrant workers, in particular, documented or undocumented, are adequately protected and safeguarded. Under these terms, R.A. No. 8042 is discernibly a piece of social legislation that the State enacted in the exercise of its police power, precisely to give teeth and arms to the constitutional provisions on labor under its aim to “establish a higher standard of protection and promotion of the welfare of migrant worker, their families and of overseas Filipinos in distress.”[6] Otherwise stated, it draws power and life from the constitutional provisions that it seeks to concretize and implement. As I pointed out in my Serrano Opinion, “the express policy declarations of R.A. No. 8042 show that its purposes are reiterations of the very same policies enshrined in the Constitution x x x [They] patently characterize R.A. No. 8042 as a direct implementation of the constitutional objectives on Filipino overseas work so that it must be read and understood in terms of these policy objectives. Under this interpretative guide, any provision in R.A. No. 8042 inimical to the interest of an overseas Filipino worker (OFW) cannot have any place in the law.”[7] [Underscoring supplied] Note also (again, as I reflected in my Serrano Opinion) that while R.A. No. 8042 acknowledges that the State shall “promote full employment,” it likewise provides that “the State does not promote overseas employment as a means to sustain economic growth and national development. The existence of overseas employment program rests solely on the assurance that the dignity and fundamental human rights and freedom of Filipino citizens shall not, at any time, be compromised and violated.”[8] The Act, however, concludes its Declaration of Policies by stating that “[n]onetheless, elibrary.judiciary.gov.ph/thebookshelf/showdocsfriendly/1/57319 34/39