Senate President Pro Tempore Jinggoy Ejercito Estrada will be in Bacolod City tomorrow as guest of honor at the Carlos Hilado Memorial State College graduation rites in Barangay Alijis, and will pay a courtesy call on newly-installed Negros Occidental Governor, Isidro Zayco.

Estrada, concurrent chairman of the Senate committee on Labor, Employment and Human Resources Development and of the Joint Congressional Oversight Committee on Labor and Employment, will also hold a dialog with NLRC labor arbiters headed by Regional Director Danilo Acosta and with union workers.

The dialog is geared towards getting inputs on how to improve the current services of the Labor Department and some bills pending in the Senate, former Valladolid Mayor Ricardo Presbitero said yesterday.

Estrada will then visit the depressed areas and residents of Barangay 3 at the North Capitol Road and the Mandalagan Elementary School at Purok Bulak, ERORECO during their high school day celebration, Presbitero said.

Estrada will also enlighten the people on his bill seeking the establishment of the Philippine Overseas Workers Bank that will help OFWs save on costs of remittance transactions and enable them to manage their money more effectively, Presbitero said.

OFWs, numbering to about 8.5 million spread in more than 100 countries, have been considered as one of the major forces in the labor front today. Their billions of dollars of remittances annually have become the country's single biggest source of foreign exchange. It is just fitting that we find ways to provide them with the means for lower-costing financial transactions, and enhance their income-generation capabilities as investors, Estrada said.

Estrada's bill proposes a capital stock of the bank at the amount of two billion pesos divided into two million shares largely to be subscribed by OFWs at the value of one thousand pesos each share.

His current priority bills are geared towards improving and strengthening the policies affecting our workforce and overseas foreign workers, empowering our local government units, protecting and preserving our freedom of expression and assembly, and promotion of youth welfare, Presbitero said.*

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