DOLE to launch pilot reintegration project in HK

ABU DHABI -- Philippine Secretary of Labor Arturo Brion said in an interview here on Monday that the Philippine Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) would launch a pilot program in Hong Kong in March to improve the English-language skills of Filipino domestic helpers, who could then get higher-paying jobs in call centers back home.

“We want to teach remedial English to domestic workers returning to the Philippines so that they could work in call centers,” Brion explained. “Then, we move to Milan and then perhaps Dubai.”

Brion was in Abu Dhabi to attend a three-day conference that brought together the major labor importing countries of the Gulf region and the major labor exporting countries of Asia. This grouping of countries, commonly known as the Colombo Process, met for the first time in a labor importing country.

Dante Ang, the chairman of the Commission of Overseas Filipinos, was also in the UAE for talks with Emirati officials, and he too dropped by the Philippine embassy to speak to community leaders.

“TESDA [Technical Education and Skills Development Authority] has agreed to do training for the call center jobs,” Ang said. “They have estimated that only 100 hours of training is needed [per person]. We would be targeting domestic helpers whose contracts are nearly over.”

“With salaries of P15,000 to P20,000 a month for entry level jobs at call centers, I think that if they could make such salaries they would much prefer to stay in the Philippines with their families,” Ang said.

Bilateral agreement with UAE

Brion said the Philippines was going to sign a milestone bilateral agreement with the United Arab Emirates to combat contract substitution and illegal exaction of fees.

UAE Labor Minister Ali Al-Ka’abi “is very progressive and we have been working with the UAE to implement a list of recommendations and measures to further protect OFWs [overseas Filipino workers],” Brion said.

“Our computers at the POEA [Philippine Overseas Employment Administration] in the Philippines will be directly linked to computers of the UAE government,” he added. “This is a pilot project and we hope that it can become a model of an agreement to use with other GCC countries.”

No one to be punished at OWWA for exchange rate snafu

The secretary of labor vehemently denied the charges that the Overseas Workers Welfare Administration (OWWA) willfully overcharged OFWs an estimated $5.3 million in membership fees last year when the peso rose in value vis-a-vis the US dollar.

“It was not a case of overcharging,” claimed Brion. “We had a trigger mechanism to change the exchange rate if the peso rose or fell by 10 percent or more. The mechanism did not work, so there was a lapse.”

But Brion insisted that no one would be held responsible at the OWWA for this lapse, which was corrected only after weeks after migrant groups protested publicly about the overcharging.

The peso last year rose by 19 percent in value versus the US dollar.

“I told the President that I didn’t think anyone in OWWA should be penalized,” Brion said, warning that aggressive reporting on the whole affair had served to incite Filipinos against their government.

“I say you [journalists] are inciting them against their government, and you shouldn’t do this,” said a visibly irked Brion.

He pointed out that OWWA had agreed to extend the insurance coverage of those OFWs overcharged, and insisted that the agency had not ended up with a cash windfall.

The labor secretary also said the currency exchange rate would now be readjusted at the end of each month, using an average of the previous month’s exchange rates.

Disturbed OFWs falling through the cracks

With the more than 200 cases of OFWs suffering from major nervous breakdowns over the past two years, Secretary Brion admitted that the Philippine government must do more to better screen OFWs before they are sent abroad to work.

“We are looking at ways of improving the psychological screening of housemaids with our Department of Health. Some have fallen through the cracks -- and we are very sorry for that,” said Brion.

Indeed, there have been several high-profile cases of OFWs, especially housemaids deployed to the Gulf and Singapore, returning home in a state of severe mental distress. For sure, they must have had some predisposition to ending up this way, but the pressures of being far away from their families and country and of having employers who are often abusive are often a lethal combination that can lead some of them to kill those in their care or to take their own lives.

The need for better reintegration

Another problem that many OFWs face when they return home is the difficulty of reintegrating back into Philippine life. The secretary of labor noted that many OFWs follow a typical financial cycle of going from rags to riches and then back to rags when they go abroad to work and then return home to no savings and no work.

“We established a National Reintegration Center in March 2007 without any specific budget,” said Brion. “I told the president we were starting this center and asked her if she could fund it next year if we were successful, and she agreed.”

The center will work on various aspects of reintegration, including helping the individual OFW reintegrate into Philippine conditions, establishing family circles as support networks, and community reintegration by linking OFWs to their communities back home using nongovernmental organizations and government agencies.

New direct hire rules slammed

Secretary Brion was adamant that the new direct hiring rules that came into effect last Jan. 16 were beneficial in helping to protect the welfare of OFWs.

“POEA used to be able to approve direct hiring, which didn’t go through recruitment agencies. But I am now the only person allowed to do so,” he said.

But the Hong Kong branch of the Migrante worker’s rights group slammed the new direct hire regulations, saying they made it extremely expensive to hire Filipinos directly and would thus force foreign employers to use Philippine recruitment agencies that they accuse of being greedy and corrupt.

“We are already burdened by overcharging of recruitment agencies that have remained uncontrolled despite the hype of the government,” Dolores Balladares, chairperson of UNFIL-Migrante-HK, said in a press statement. “Now they are leaving us completely to the mercy of recruiters by taking away the option for direct hiring...”

I have to agree with Migrante. While the DOLE keeps saying that it is enforcing new rules and regulations to protect the welfare of OFWs, it often seems more intent on pleasing the private recruitment agencies that have made millions off the fees they regularly charge Filipinos who want to work abroad.

It’s a shame that there does not seem to be any effective and honest enough overseer of the recruitment agencies that all too often fleece OFWs going abroad and then refuse to help them when they have labor disputes with their employers or when they need to be repatriated. - By Rasheed Abou-Alsamh, INQUIRER.net, January 26, 2008

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Comments or questions? Email me at rasheedaboualsamh@yahoo.com. Visit my blog at http://rasheedsworld.blogspot.com.