RP, Japan discuss easing limits on Filipino entertainers

By Jerome Aning
Inquirer
First Posted 22:01:00 08/30/2007

MANILA, Philippines -- The government is negotiating the easing up of restrictions imposed by Japan on the deployment of overseas performing artists (OPAs), according to the Bureau of Immigration commissioner Marcelino Libanan.

“The Japanese government wanted us to make new procedures for the deployment of Filipino entertainers as to how they will be screened,” Libanan told the Philippine Daily Inquirer in an interview on Thursday.

The commissioner recalled that Japan allowed OPAs to enter only if they had two years of schooling or experience as an entertainment worker.

Libanan proposed the accreditation of applying entertainers by group, rather than individually.

“Japanese employers will come here and present themselves so we would know the details of their deployment. Everybody will police their ranks. There will be no room for irregularities,” he added.

Libanan said the beneficiaries of his proposal would be performing in shows in Japan.

“Group deployment would be easier because when something irregular crops out, it would be easier to blacklist, not just the recruits but also the agents and the employers,” the official said.

Libanan said that in his proposal, an inter-agency group composed of the BI, the Commission on Filipinos Overseas and the Labor Department would screen the applicants by group.

Japan restricted the deployment of OPAs after reports of rampant human trafficking and stories of Filipino entertainers ending up as prostitutes in Japanese nightclubs.

Filipino OPAs deployed to Japan used to number 80,000 a year. In 2006, there were only 10,000 deployed, according to the private recruitment agencies.