Short answer. Through the Overseas Employment Development Board under Article 17, which is empowered to secure the best possible terms and conditions of employment of Filipino contract workers on a government-to-government basis, ensure compliance with those terms, and recruit and place workers under such government-to-government arrangements.
What the law says
To secure the best possible terms and conditions of employment of Filipino contract workers on a government-to-government basis and to ensure compliance therewith
Labor Code, Article 17 — Overseas Employment Development Board. Read the full provision →
What the law says
To recruit and place workers for overseas employment on a government-to-government arrangement and in such other sectors as policy may dictate
Labor Code, Article 17 — Overseas Employment Development Board. Read the full provision →
Two of the Board's specific powers cover this directly
Article 17 gives the Overseas Employment Development Board two powers that speak directly to government-to-government hiring. First, to secure the best possible terms and conditions of employment of Filipino contract workers on a government-to-government basis and to ensure compliance therewith. Second, to recruit and place workers for overseas employment on a government-to-government arrangement and in such other sectors as policy may dictate. Together, these powers cover negotiating the terms of the arrangement and actually carrying out the recruitment and placement under it.
Negotiating terms is only half the job — compliance is the other half
The article does not stop at securing favorable terms; it also charges the Board with ensuring compliance with those terms once an arrangement exists. Negotiating good terms of employment for Filipino contract workers matters little if compliance is not followed up on, and Article 17 treats the two as a single, connected duty rather than allowing the Board to consider its job finished the moment terms are agreed.
Recruitment and placement is a separate, linked function
Beyond negotiating terms, the Board is also empowered to actually recruit and place workers under a government-to-government arrangement, and the article leaves room for this to extend into other sectors as policy may dictate. This means the government-to-government channel is not limited only to whatever sectors exist today; the scope can expand as policy develops, while the underlying framework of securing terms and ensuring compliance stays the same regardless of the sector involved.
What this means for a worker hired this way
If you are being placed abroad through a government-to-government arrangement, the framework behind that placement is not a private recruitment agency negotiating on its own — it traces back to a specific statutory power to secure terms, ensure compliance, and handle recruitment and placement directly. This article does not itself list what those terms and conditions actually are for any particular country or sector, since that depends on the specific arrangement negotiated, which this page cannot supply for you. It also does not say what happens if an employer abroad breaches the terms secured under such an arrangement, so a worker facing that situation would need to look beyond this single article for the applicable remedy.