The Department of Migrant Workers should explore and pursue treaties with other countries that would grant convicted overseas Filipino workers to instead serve their prison term in the Philippines, Senator Francis "Chiz" Escudero said Tuesday. 

In his interpellation during the chamber's deliberation of the 2024 proposed budget of the DMW, Escudero said the DMW should include this undertaking in its priority program "in the spirit of giving second chances for our convicted countrymen or even those classified as detention prisoners" abroad. 

The DMW said there are some 1,254 OFWs currently in prison as to date. Of the figure,  293  are imprisoned in Asia-Pacific, 7 in Europe, and 954 in the Middle East.

"I remember when there was a Spanish national in the Philippines who was imprisoned for allegedly killing someone in Cebu, and the very first thing Spain did was to negotiate and try to enter into a treaty with the Philippines with respect to prisoner exchange," said Escudero. 

The senator cited the previous case of Francisco "Paco" Larrañaga in Cebu involving the abduction of sisters Marijoy and Jacqueline Chiong on 16 July 1997 outside Ayala Center. 

The sensational case became known as the "trial of the decade" in the Visayas due to the prominence of the suspects, including Larrañaga, whose mother was a cousin of the late Cebu governor Emilio Osmeña.

Escudero said the case prompted the Spanish government to have the Treaty of Sentenced Persons Agreement or TSPA, signed between the Philippines and Spain on 18 May 2007— that was also ratified on the same year by the Senate.