ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the use of similar analytical frameworks to unravel the issue in the Philippines. It provides a comparison of significant trends between the Philippines and the Indonesia, with regards to migrant worker protection management. Additional constraints at the second-level games have been identified, which put pressure on Filipino decision-makers during a first-level negotiation between the Filipino government and other Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) member states in an ASEAN policy negotiation. The chapter focuses on the identities and discourses within the normative structures of governmental institutions in the Philippines, such as the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA), the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA), the Overseas Workers Welfare Administration (OWWA), and the Department of Labour and Employment (DOLE). It assesses how these institutions have perceived their roles for the protection of workers and the extent to which they entrust the role of workers' protection to the mechanism of ASEAN.
