Section 2. Qualifications and Authority - Migrant Workers and Overseas Filipinos Act

Section 2. Qualifications and Authority. The Legal Assistant for Migrant Workers Affairs shall be headed by a lawyer of proven competence in the field of law with at least ten (10) years experience as a legal practitioner and who must not have been a candidate to an elective office in the last local or national elections. He/she shall be appointed by the President of the Philippines. He/she shall have the title, rank, salary, and privileges of an Undersecretary of Foreign Affairs, and shall head the Office of the Undersecretary for Migrant Workers' Affairs (OUMWA) of the Department of Foreign Affairs.

He/she shall have authority to hire private lawyers, domestic or foreign, in order to assist him/her in the effective discharge of the functions of his/her Office.