Commenting on whether migrant workers should be allowed to bring their families overseas, SMU Assistant Professor of Sociology Yasmin Ortiga pointed out, “There must be a more nuanced, or more specific way to determine whether a family needs aid or not beyond just the overseas Filipino workers family member…. The problem in an emergency is, people need to disburse funds very quickly.” The pandemic, according to Asst Prof Ortiga, has also made it more evident that having a family member working abroad should still allow that family to have access to government programs. She added that in the same way the pandemic has exacerbated weaknesses in social welfare programs, the health crisis and its impact on migrant workers “reminds us that the stereotype of the migrant worker has been used to proxy everything from troubled children to access to aid, to a kind of explanation of what these families are going through.”