Introduction: Philippine Labor Migration 50 Years Later

This article introduces the Special Country Report on the Philippines. It provides a brief history of the governance of labor migration from the Philippines, which officially began with the 1974 Labor Code. The article examines Philippine migration governance and addresses the relationship of the state to other key actors of migration with a particular focus on the government's reliance on labor recruitment agencies. Finally, this article describes the characteristics of Philippine migration, establishing it to be primarily South–South, temporary, and constituting of multinational migration flows.