September 24, 2010 - THIRTY-FOUR persons, including three foreign nationals, were charged Tuesday for allegedly defrauding at least 19 jobseekers, mostly nurses, of P300,000 each, in exchange for high-paying jobs in the United Kingdom.
Charged with syndicated and large scale illegal recruitment and estafa in the Makati Prosecutor’s Office were Timothy Malcolm Sargeant, 53, and Karen Denise Wood, 38, both British nationals; Kenyan Paul Maundu Nyamai, 33, and the Filipino staff of the employment agency International Student Advisors 4U Inc. (ISA).
The suspects were arrested by operatives of the Anti-Transnational Crime Division of the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group during an entrapment operation in their office at Mavenue Building, Guerrero Street, Makati Avenue, Makati City.
Senior Supt. Gilbert Sosa, chief of the CIDG-ATCD, said several other officials and employees of ISA are still at large, including the owners, Philip Leonard, a British national, and his wife, Bernalyn Nacionales-Leonard.
Also named respondents were officials and employees of Faces and Shots Video Editing Inc. and Sir Philip Leonard Learning Center Inc.
Sosa said ISA, Faces and Shots Video Editing Inc. and Sir Philip Leonard Learning Center Inc. serve as one-stop shops for illegal recruitment activities of the respondents through a student visa scheme.
Under its Securities and Exchange Commission registration, the agency is only limited to providing advisory and marketing consultancy services for training college and university courses in foreign countries.
However, on their official website, the firm reportedly advertises their capability to bring nurses and health care professionals to the UK on a “Study and Work” program.
Many of the complainants said they applied for on-the-job training offered by the company because it promised big salaries as nurses and caregivers in the UK.
Each was required to pay amounts ranging from P300,000 to P650,000.
A verification with the POEA showed that the respondents and ISA were not authorized to recruit and deploy workers abroad. - Tina Santos, Philippine Daily Inquirer
Monday, December 27, 2010
3 illegal recruitment victims return home
April 20, 2009, MANILA, Philippines – Three Filipinas who were victims of illegal recruitment and sex trafficking in west African nation of Ivory Coast were rescued by the Philippine National Red Cross (PNRC) and returned to their families on Monday.
On board flight EK334 from Dubai, Abby, Rose and Marie (not their real names) arrived at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA) at around 2 a.m., said Senator Richard Gordon, who also chairs the PNRC.
The three were recruited by Mirasol and Arnold Granada with a promise of earning as much as P 150,000 a month as cashiers in Ivory Coast, Gordon said.
But upon their arrival, their passports were reportedly confiscated in the airport, he said.
As a result, the victims were forced to work at Ilongo Bar, a night club owned by a certain Noemi Carnaje Shen, who is also a Filipina, he said.
According to Abby, her refusal to work in the night club allegedly prompted her employers to lock her inside a room without being given food. Using their mobile phones, the victims sought the help of their families, Gordon said.
The PNRC coordinated with the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) for the immediate rescue of the three overseas workers and their immediate repatriation, he said.
Gordon said he also sought the assistance of the Red Cross Society of Ivory Coast to assess the situation and condition of the three to extend whatever assistance they needed, he said.
Immediately upon their arrival in Manila, the three victims underwent stress debriefing to avoid post-traumatic stress disorder and were given medical assistance, he said.
“The OFWs [Overseas Filipina Workers] were complaining of body pain due to some physical abuse and lack of food for several days so we immediately conducted general check-up. We also provided meals and offered them the PNRC hostel for their temporary shelter,” said PNRC Social Services Manager Zenaida Beltejar.
PNRC Social Services also contacted the three victims’ relatives.
“Welfare of our OFWs is one of the major concerns of the PNRC. We are going to extend all possible help we could provide to them especially when they are ill-treated in other countries,” said PNRC secretary general Gwen Pang. - Abigail Kwok, INQUIRER.net
On board flight EK334 from Dubai, Abby, Rose and Marie (not their real names) arrived at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA) at around 2 a.m., said Senator Richard Gordon, who also chairs the PNRC.
The three were recruited by Mirasol and Arnold Granada with a promise of earning as much as P 150,000 a month as cashiers in Ivory Coast, Gordon said.
But upon their arrival, their passports were reportedly confiscated in the airport, he said.
As a result, the victims were forced to work at Ilongo Bar, a night club owned by a certain Noemi Carnaje Shen, who is also a Filipina, he said.
According to Abby, her refusal to work in the night club allegedly prompted her employers to lock her inside a room without being given food. Using their mobile phones, the victims sought the help of their families, Gordon said.
The PNRC coordinated with the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) for the immediate rescue of the three overseas workers and their immediate repatriation, he said.
Gordon said he also sought the assistance of the Red Cross Society of Ivory Coast to assess the situation and condition of the three to extend whatever assistance they needed, he said.
Immediately upon their arrival in Manila, the three victims underwent stress debriefing to avoid post-traumatic stress disorder and were given medical assistance, he said.
“The OFWs [Overseas Filipina Workers] were complaining of body pain due to some physical abuse and lack of food for several days so we immediately conducted general check-up. We also provided meals and offered them the PNRC hostel for their temporary shelter,” said PNRC Social Services Manager Zenaida Beltejar.
PNRC Social Services also contacted the three victims’ relatives.
“Welfare of our OFWs is one of the major concerns of the PNRC. We are going to extend all possible help we could provide to them especially when they are ill-treated in other countries,” said PNRC secretary general Gwen Pang. - Abigail Kwok, INQUIRER.net
97 victims of illegal recruitment rescued
June 17, 2009, MANILA, Philippines—Police on Tuesday rescued 97 victims of illegal recruitment after months of being forced to stay inside a training center in Manila, a police official said on Wednesday.
Director Raul Castaneda, chief of the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group, said the victims were rescued at Da Farmers Training Center Corporation in San Andres Bukid, Sta. Ana, where they were forced to stay while waiting for their papers to be processed.
Senior Superintendent Gilbert Sosa, chief of the CIDG Anti-Transnational Crime Division, said the victims were brought from remote villages around the country to Manila with the promise of jobs in the Middle East particularly in Dubai, Qatar, Oman, and Kuwait.
The recruitment firm, Al-Alamia International Manpower Services, is owned by a certain Ma. Dolores Elanany.
"They have been in the center for several months already and have incurred lots of expenses for their documents and yet it was unclear whether their trip will push through," Sosa said.
Earlier, 22 other victims of the firm approached the police for assistance.
Police, however, failed to arrest the owner of the recruitment agency.
The rescued victims of the recruitment firm were brought to the Visayan Forum Foundation.
Castaneda said police will be filing charges of violation of Republic Act 8042 (Migrant Workers and Overseas Filipinos Act of 1995), RA 9208 (Trafficking in Persons Act of 2003), and Article 315 (swindling) of the Revised Penal Code. - Abigail Kwok, INQUIRER.net
Director Raul Castaneda, chief of the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group, said the victims were rescued at Da Farmers Training Center Corporation in San Andres Bukid, Sta. Ana, where they were forced to stay while waiting for their papers to be processed.
Senior Superintendent Gilbert Sosa, chief of the CIDG Anti-Transnational Crime Division, said the victims were brought from remote villages around the country to Manila with the promise of jobs in the Middle East particularly in Dubai, Qatar, Oman, and Kuwait.
The recruitment firm, Al-Alamia International Manpower Services, is owned by a certain Ma. Dolores Elanany.
"They have been in the center for several months already and have incurred lots of expenses for their documents and yet it was unclear whether their trip will push through," Sosa said.
Earlier, 22 other victims of the firm approached the police for assistance.
Police, however, failed to arrest the owner of the recruitment agency.
The rescued victims of the recruitment firm were brought to the Visayan Forum Foundation.
Castaneda said police will be filing charges of violation of Republic Act 8042 (Migrant Workers and Overseas Filipinos Act of 1995), RA 9208 (Trafficking in Persons Act of 2003), and Article 315 (swindling) of the Revised Penal Code. - Abigail Kwok, INQUIRER.net
DFA warns about new recruitment scam
January 11, 2010, MANILA, Philippines - The Department of Foreign Affairs has warned Filipinos seeking jobs abroad about a new recruitment scam which the Philippine embassy in Germany uncovered.
In a statement, the DFA said two Filipinos contacted the embassy for help in verifying the status of a company named Markel-Power International, located in the northern German city of Bremen, which had informed the two through e-mail that they would be hired by the firm.
But the company had one condition for the jobs. They first had to pay 70 euros (about P4,600) through Western Union to an employment company based in Monza, a city in Italy’s Lombardy region.
The Philippine embassy discovered that Markel-Power International was non-existent, was not registered with the Bremen Chamber of Commerce and Industry, had a fictitious address, had no telephone and fax numbers, and was using a host in the United States for its English website.
“The embassy is convinced this recruitment scheme is another variation of the Nigerian 4-1-9 advance-fee scam designed to victimize innocent Filipino jobseekers,” chargé d’affaires Christine Queenie Mangunay said.
The Nigerian 4-1-9 scam, also known as the Nigerian advance-fee scheme, involves the receipt of an unsolicited letter allegedly from a Nigerian Central Bank employee or from the Nigerian government. It is named after the section of the Nigerian penal code which tackles fraudulent schemes.
The embassy has warned Filipino jobseekers of the new scam and has asked the DFA to bring the matter to the attention of relevant authorities such as the Department of Labor and Employment, Department of Justice and Philippine National Police.
Meanwhile, an overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) group yesterday called on the Philippine government to do something about the “unabated” illegal recruitment of OFWs to Macau.
Cynthia Tellez, executive director of the Mission for Migrant Workers (MFMW) based in Hong Kong, said the Philippine government was ignoring the victims of illegal recruitment.
MFMW called on the government to provide immediate assistance, such as temporary shelter, legal counsel and air passage, to all victims of illegal recruitment, and to arrest and prosecute all illegal recruiters of Filipinos in Macau.
According to Tellez, MFMW handled nearly 50 OFWs who were victims of illegal recruitment to Macau in the fourth quarter of 2009.
Thirteen OFWs had sought the assistance of the Filipino Catholic Pastoral Center and Migrante Macau. Tellez said the group sought the assistance of the Philippine consulate on Jan. 5.
“We were told by the assistance to nationals section officer that we cannot get any assistance from them and they even blamed us for our plight,” Tellez quoted one of the OFWs, Rico Cabangon, as saying. - Jerome Aning, Philippine Daily Inquirer
In a statement, the DFA said two Filipinos contacted the embassy for help in verifying the status of a company named Markel-Power International, located in the northern German city of Bremen, which had informed the two through e-mail that they would be hired by the firm.
But the company had one condition for the jobs. They first had to pay 70 euros (about P4,600) through Western Union to an employment company based in Monza, a city in Italy’s Lombardy region.
The Philippine embassy discovered that Markel-Power International was non-existent, was not registered with the Bremen Chamber of Commerce and Industry, had a fictitious address, had no telephone and fax numbers, and was using a host in the United States for its English website.
“The embassy is convinced this recruitment scheme is another variation of the Nigerian 4-1-9 advance-fee scam designed to victimize innocent Filipino jobseekers,” chargé d’affaires Christine Queenie Mangunay said.
The Nigerian 4-1-9 scam, also known as the Nigerian advance-fee scheme, involves the receipt of an unsolicited letter allegedly from a Nigerian Central Bank employee or from the Nigerian government. It is named after the section of the Nigerian penal code which tackles fraudulent schemes.
The embassy has warned Filipino jobseekers of the new scam and has asked the DFA to bring the matter to the attention of relevant authorities such as the Department of Labor and Employment, Department of Justice and Philippine National Police.
Meanwhile, an overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) group yesterday called on the Philippine government to do something about the “unabated” illegal recruitment of OFWs to Macau.
Cynthia Tellez, executive director of the Mission for Migrant Workers (MFMW) based in Hong Kong, said the Philippine government was ignoring the victims of illegal recruitment.
MFMW called on the government to provide immediate assistance, such as temporary shelter, legal counsel and air passage, to all victims of illegal recruitment, and to arrest and prosecute all illegal recruiters of Filipinos in Macau.
According to Tellez, MFMW handled nearly 50 OFWs who were victims of illegal recruitment to Macau in the fourth quarter of 2009.
Thirteen OFWs had sought the assistance of the Filipino Catholic Pastoral Center and Migrante Macau. Tellez said the group sought the assistance of the Philippine consulate on Jan. 5.
“We were told by the assistance to nationals section officer that we cannot get any assistance from them and they even blamed us for our plight,” Tellez quoted one of the OFWs, Rico Cabangon, as saying. - Jerome Aning, Philippine Daily Inquirer
Foreigner faces deportation on illegal recruitment raps
April 07, 2010, MANILA, Philippines – The Bureau of Immigration has started deportation proceedings against a foreigner arrested for large scale illegal recruitment in Palawan, Commissioner Marcelino Libanan said.
Ehmad Agha a.k.a. Salim Jan Iftikha, identified as a Pakistani national and currently detained in Bicutan, was declared an undesirable and undocumented alien following his and Filipina wife’s Emy Encinas arrest last March 23 by the Puerto Princesa police, the immigration chief said.
Immigration Area Office (IAO) Region 5 Director Jose Tria said Iftikha was the subject of complaints by 11 Filipinos in Palawan who were allegedly victimized by the couple in their illegal recruitment racket.
Tria said the Pakistani could not present his passport or any travel document from the time he was arrested.
The 11 complainants alleged that they were convinced by Iftikha and his wife to give P20, 000 each in return for their employment overseas.
The complainants sought the help of the police when they learned that the couple was planning to leave the country without notice.
Upon investigation, Iftikha claimed that he was a Pakistani and British citizen and that he arrived in the country sometime in July or August last year.
Verification of Iftikha’s claim, however, showed that the name of the suspect did not appear in the computerized travel records of the BI, arousing suspicion that he illegally entered the country via the backdoor. - Tetch Torres, INQUIRER.net
Ehmad Agha a.k.a. Salim Jan Iftikha, identified as a Pakistani national and currently detained in Bicutan, was declared an undesirable and undocumented alien following his and Filipina wife’s Emy Encinas arrest last March 23 by the Puerto Princesa police, the immigration chief said.
Immigration Area Office (IAO) Region 5 Director Jose Tria said Iftikha was the subject of complaints by 11 Filipinos in Palawan who were allegedly victimized by the couple in their illegal recruitment racket.
Tria said the Pakistani could not present his passport or any travel document from the time he was arrested.
The 11 complainants alleged that they were convinced by Iftikha and his wife to give P20, 000 each in return for their employment overseas.
The complainants sought the help of the police when they learned that the couple was planning to leave the country without notice.
Upon investigation, Iftikha claimed that he was a Pakistani and British citizen and that he arrived in the country sometime in July or August last year.
Verification of Iftikha’s claim, however, showed that the name of the suspect did not appear in the computerized travel records of the BI, arousing suspicion that he illegally entered the country via the backdoor. - Tetch Torres, INQUIRER.net
Jordanian arrested for illegal recruitment
June 12, 2009, MANILA, Philippines—Immigration agents have arrested a Jordanian man accused of running an illegal recruitment operation in the Philippines, the Bureau of Immigration (BI) said.
Faris Al-Kawadri, 29, was nabbed Monday inside his hotel room in Makati City, the bureau’s intelligence and security chief, Alberto Braganza, said.
The agency said Al-Kawadri was responsible for the illegal deployment of Filipino women to Middle East.
The BI official said they found the passports of three women from Mindanao in the suspect’s room.
“He will thus be deported for working here without the required permit and visa and for being an undesirable alien,” Braganza said.
When asked about the passports, Al-Kawadri said the travel documents were given to him by a placement agency based in Ermita for processing. The three women who owned the passports were supposed to leave for Saudi Arabia as contract workers, he said.
Aside from the illegal recruitment charges, Al-Kawadri was also accused of maltreating his Filipino wife.
Al-Kawadri’s wife reported his activities to bureau and helped in his arrest.
In her complaint, Al-Kawadri’s wife alleged that her husband abandoned her and their one-and-a-half-year-old son for one year without giving any support. Kristine L. Alave, Philippine Daily Inquirer
Faris Al-Kawadri, 29, was nabbed Monday inside his hotel room in Makati City, the bureau’s intelligence and security chief, Alberto Braganza, said.
The agency said Al-Kawadri was responsible for the illegal deployment of Filipino women to Middle East.
The BI official said they found the passports of three women from Mindanao in the suspect’s room.
“He will thus be deported for working here without the required permit and visa and for being an undesirable alien,” Braganza said.
When asked about the passports, Al-Kawadri said the travel documents were given to him by a placement agency based in Ermita for processing. The three women who owned the passports were supposed to leave for Saudi Arabia as contract workers, he said.
Aside from the illegal recruitment charges, Al-Kawadri was also accused of maltreating his Filipino wife.
Al-Kawadri’s wife reported his activities to bureau and helped in his arrest.
In her complaint, Al-Kawadri’s wife alleged that her husband abandoned her and their one-and-a-half-year-old son for one year without giving any support. Kristine L. Alave, Philippine Daily Inquirer
DFA warns of illegal recruitment scam in Spain
February 16, 2010, MANILA, Philippines — An illegal recruitment operation is currently being perpetrated by a syndicate using Spain as a destination for Filipino workers, the Philippine embassy in Spain said in its report to the Department of Foreign Affairs.
The embassy named the company allegedly recruiting Filipino workers under this scheme as Previsto Ferrocariel Guiscoanagin, with address at Calle Placentinos 18B, 32005, Barcelona, Spain.
The syndicate is using the email address espanolconsulate@europe.com to communicate with Filipino workers and lead them to believe that this is the e-mail address of the Philippine embassy in Madrid.
The Philippine consulate general in Barcelona has verified that there is no such address in Barcelona. There is a Calle de los Placentinos in the province of Salamanca, while the zip code 32005 corresponds to the province of Ourense, not Catalonia.
The public is advised to be wary of job offers from this company and to first check the veracity of any job offer and company with the Philippine Overseas Labor Office in the country concerned, the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration, or the Department of Labor and Employment. - INQUIRER.net
The embassy named the company allegedly recruiting Filipino workers under this scheme as Previsto Ferrocariel Guiscoanagin, with address at Calle Placentinos 18B, 32005, Barcelona, Spain.
The syndicate is using the email address espanolconsulate@europe.com to communicate with Filipino workers and lead them to believe that this is the e-mail address of the Philippine embassy in Madrid.
The Philippine consulate general in Barcelona has verified that there is no such address in Barcelona. There is a Calle de los Placentinos in the province of Salamanca, while the zip code 32005 corresponds to the province of Ourense, not Catalonia.
The public is advised to be wary of job offers from this company and to first check the veracity of any job offer and company with the Philippine Overseas Labor Office in the country concerned, the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration, or the Department of Labor and Employment. - INQUIRER.net
Pedicab driver nabbed for illegal recruitment
January 20, 2010, MANILA, Philippines--Police arrested a tricyle driver after he allegedly collected P100,000 each from eight people to whom he promised jobs in Canada that proved to be nonexistent.
Supt. Jose Hidalgo, director of Manila Police District Station 5 in Ermita, said the suspect, Alexander Abuan, was arrested on Monday while receiving marked money from a prospective victim.
According to the police, Abuan, 47, of Dolores, Quezon, collected the money between April and October last year, telling his victims that he was a representative of MedRP International Philippines Inc.
Abuan reportedly promised the jobseekers that they would be leaving in November 2009 for high-paying positions in a factory in Canada, but this did not materialize.
Police identified those who were promised jobs as Marlon Velasquez, 32; Melody Velasquez, 34; Michael Vincent Fransisco; 27; Ruth Espinosa, 25; Vienna Katherine Rivera, 22; Rosalie Vinas Juan, 34; Reymund Santos, 25; and Marisol Cruz, 27.
Exasperated, the jobseekers went to the Philippine Overseas Employment Agency where they found out that MedRP International Philippines Inc. was not accredited to deploy workers abroad.
The victims sought the help of the police who then set up an entrapment operation to catch Abuan who was later nabbed inside a fastfood establishment on Taft Avenue near Pedro Gil, Manila.
Police named Abuan’s alleged accomplices as Benjamin and Mariel Chua, owners of MedRP, and fellow representatives Haber Yusop, Rhea Yusop, and Jovita Pongan.
Large-scale estafa and illegal recruitment charges have been filed against Abuan and the other suspects who remain at large. Tina Santos, Philippine Daily Inquirer
Supt. Jose Hidalgo, director of Manila Police District Station 5 in Ermita, said the suspect, Alexander Abuan, was arrested on Monday while receiving marked money from a prospective victim.
According to the police, Abuan, 47, of Dolores, Quezon, collected the money between April and October last year, telling his victims that he was a representative of MedRP International Philippines Inc.
Abuan reportedly promised the jobseekers that they would be leaving in November 2009 for high-paying positions in a factory in Canada, but this did not materialize.
Police identified those who were promised jobs as Marlon Velasquez, 32; Melody Velasquez, 34; Michael Vincent Fransisco; 27; Ruth Espinosa, 25; Vienna Katherine Rivera, 22; Rosalie Vinas Juan, 34; Reymund Santos, 25; and Marisol Cruz, 27.
Exasperated, the jobseekers went to the Philippine Overseas Employment Agency where they found out that MedRP International Philippines Inc. was not accredited to deploy workers abroad.
The victims sought the help of the police who then set up an entrapment operation to catch Abuan who was later nabbed inside a fastfood establishment on Taft Avenue near Pedro Gil, Manila.
Police named Abuan’s alleged accomplices as Benjamin and Mariel Chua, owners of MedRP, and fellow representatives Haber Yusop, Rhea Yusop, and Jovita Pongan.
Large-scale estafa and illegal recruitment charges have been filed against Abuan and the other suspects who remain at large. Tina Santos, Philippine Daily Inquirer
Woman nabbed for illegal recruitment
June 23, 2010 - A woman was arrested in her apartment in barangay Labangon, Cebu City for allegedly engaging in illegal recruitment.
Mariam Hasam, 51, was arrested Monday night in an entrapment operation. She transacted with a policeman who posed as an applicant.
According to police investigation, Hasam's husband was an Arabian national and shareholder of Royal Mont Hotel in Canada.
The woman told police that she only wanted to help her husband find workers for the hotel and this way help some people find work abroad.
Hasam told police that she did not know that she had to secure a permit from the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA) for her efforts.
Hasam said she did the direct recruiting and her husband would give final approval.
She said the hotel would shoulder the cost of the applicant's trip to Canada.
Working permits or working visas for the accepted applicants would be processed once they arrive in Canada, the woman said.
Hasam said she would require applicants to pay P5,000 for their medical examination.
She said she had already sent several people to Canada for work.
The police set up the entrapment after six persons reported to the police that the woman issued them dubious receipts after paying for their medical examinations.
One complainant said she and her husband learned about Hasam’s direct hiring from their neighbors.
She said they were offered jobs as chamber maids and room boys in the Royal Mont Hotel.
The complainant said they pawned their motorcycle for P10,000 when Hasam asked them to pay P5,000 so their applications would be processed right away.
The woman said they were surprised when after making payment, the woman only gave them a handwritten acknowledgment which served as a receipt.
The woman said Hasam also showed them a copy of their supposed contract which showed several errors.
Hasam was detained at the Punta Princesa police station while charges are being readied against her, said police. - Carine M. Asutilla, Cebu Daily News/Inquirer.net
Mariam Hasam, 51, was arrested Monday night in an entrapment operation. She transacted with a policeman who posed as an applicant.
According to police investigation, Hasam's husband was an Arabian national and shareholder of Royal Mont Hotel in Canada.
The woman told police that she only wanted to help her husband find workers for the hotel and this way help some people find work abroad.
Hasam told police that she did not know that she had to secure a permit from the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA) for her efforts.
Hasam said she did the direct recruiting and her husband would give final approval.
She said the hotel would shoulder the cost of the applicant's trip to Canada.
Working permits or working visas for the accepted applicants would be processed once they arrive in Canada, the woman said.
Hasam said she would require applicants to pay P5,000 for their medical examination.
She said she had already sent several people to Canada for work.
The police set up the entrapment after six persons reported to the police that the woman issued them dubious receipts after paying for their medical examinations.
One complainant said she and her husband learned about Hasam’s direct hiring from their neighbors.
She said they were offered jobs as chamber maids and room boys in the Royal Mont Hotel.
The complainant said they pawned their motorcycle for P10,000 when Hasam asked them to pay P5,000 so their applications would be processed right away.
The woman said they were surprised when after making payment, the woman only gave them a handwritten acknowledgment which served as a receipt.
The woman said Hasam also showed them a copy of their supposed contract which showed several errors.
Hasam was detained at the Punta Princesa police station while charges are being readied against her, said police. - Carine M. Asutilla, Cebu Daily News/Inquirer.net
36 arrested for illegal recruitment
September 22, 2010, MANILA, Philippines –Thirty-six people, including three foreigners, were arrested for illegal recruitment in an entrapment operation by members of the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group (CIDG) in Makati City on Tuesday, police reports showed Wednesday.
Two British nationals, one Kenyan and the Filipino staff of the employment agency International Student Advisors 4 U Incorporated were the subjects of complaints by sixteen of their applicants, police said.
Arrested by the authorities were Timothy Malcolm Sargeant, Karen Denise Wood, both British nationals; and Kenyan Paul Maundu Nyamai. The Filipinos were not identified.
CIDG Director Leon Nilo dela Cruz said the applicants complained after their visa applications were denied by the embassy of the United Kingdom.
Senior Superintendent Gilbert Sosa, CIDG Anti-Transnational Crimes Division chief police, said that the suspects extorted application processing fees from their victims from P300,000 to P370,000 each.
The agency allegedly promised the applicants work as medical staff or caregivers but with student visas.
Police said that further investigation with UK embassy showed that there were no student programs in the UK universities. Karen Boncocan, INQUIRER.net
Two British nationals, one Kenyan and the Filipino staff of the employment agency International Student Advisors 4 U Incorporated were the subjects of complaints by sixteen of their applicants, police said.
Arrested by the authorities were Timothy Malcolm Sargeant, Karen Denise Wood, both British nationals; and Kenyan Paul Maundu Nyamai. The Filipinos were not identified.
CIDG Director Leon Nilo dela Cruz said the applicants complained after their visa applications were denied by the embassy of the United Kingdom.
Senior Superintendent Gilbert Sosa, CIDG Anti-Transnational Crimes Division chief police, said that the suspects extorted application processing fees from their victims from P300,000 to P370,000 each.
The agency allegedly promised the applicants work as medical staff or caregivers but with student visas.
Police said that further investigation with UK embassy showed that there were no student programs in the UK universities. Karen Boncocan, INQUIRER.net
6 jailed in Bicol for illegal recruitment
October 24, 2010, MANILA, Philippines—Six people were arrested and detained in Bicol after the labor department’s regional office in the area and the Public Employment Service Office (Peso) in Bulan, Sorsogan immediately acted on complaints of the victims, the labor department said in a news release.
Citing a report by lawyer Alvin Villamor, Department of Labor and Employment Region 5 director, Labor Secretary Rosalinda Baldoz said a certain “Jeric,” allegedly the mastermind, a certain “Ruth,” who acted as the secretary of the group, and four other unidentified individuals were apprehended after they failed to produce the necessary documents from the company they were representing for them to recruit workers from Bicol.
“Upon investigation, Jeric turned out to be a former employee of SMART-PLDT who was terminated last April, while Ruth was never connected with the said firm. The four other cohorts were confirmed to be absent-without-official-leave from SMART-PLDT as of September 2010,” Baldoz said.
“It was actually the four unnamed suspects who spilled the beans on Jeric after they approached Bulan, Sorsogon Peso manager Analyn Diaz. Upon learning that Jeric was no longer connected with SMART-PLDT and that the same company treated them as AWOL when they went to Bicol, the four joined the applicant victims in filing a complaint with the PNP,” she added.
The report said the group claimed they were authorized to conduct specialized recruitment in any province for call center jobs in Metro Manila. They likewise advertised the vacancy in a newspaper with a promise of a starting basic salary of P15,000 up to P25,000.
Jobseekers from Bulan, Sorsogon and nearby areas hurriedly went to the recruitment area with hopes of landing jobs as advertised. Marvin Jubilla took a one-hour ride from Magallanes, Sorsogon to try his luck, while Jonell Navarro, an AB English graduate and a part-time tricycle driver from Bulan also applied and was accepted. Both realized they were fooled by the group even as one applicant was hired-on-the-spot and was promised a P1,500 daily wage.
Diaz, who was informed of an ongoing jobs fair in their municipality, grew suspicious of the activity as there were no permission issued to any entity to conduct a jobs fair in their area that time. Arriving at the recruitment venue, she posed as an applicant and began looking for appropriate recruitment permits from the group. The group was apprehended after failing to produce the necessary documents.
The apprehended suspects are facing charges of large-scale illegal recruitment, a no-bail criminal offense, as the local government in Bulan as well as the Bulan Peso are fast-tracking their arraignment. - INQUIRER.net
Citing a report by lawyer Alvin Villamor, Department of Labor and Employment Region 5 director, Labor Secretary Rosalinda Baldoz said a certain “Jeric,” allegedly the mastermind, a certain “Ruth,” who acted as the secretary of the group, and four other unidentified individuals were apprehended after they failed to produce the necessary documents from the company they were representing for them to recruit workers from Bicol.
“Upon investigation, Jeric turned out to be a former employee of SMART-PLDT who was terminated last April, while Ruth was never connected with the said firm. The four other cohorts were confirmed to be absent-without-official-leave from SMART-PLDT as of September 2010,” Baldoz said.
“It was actually the four unnamed suspects who spilled the beans on Jeric after they approached Bulan, Sorsogon Peso manager Analyn Diaz. Upon learning that Jeric was no longer connected with SMART-PLDT and that the same company treated them as AWOL when they went to Bicol, the four joined the applicant victims in filing a complaint with the PNP,” she added.
The report said the group claimed they were authorized to conduct specialized recruitment in any province for call center jobs in Metro Manila. They likewise advertised the vacancy in a newspaper with a promise of a starting basic salary of P15,000 up to P25,000.
Jobseekers from Bulan, Sorsogon and nearby areas hurriedly went to the recruitment area with hopes of landing jobs as advertised. Marvin Jubilla took a one-hour ride from Magallanes, Sorsogon to try his luck, while Jonell Navarro, an AB English graduate and a part-time tricycle driver from Bulan also applied and was accepted. Both realized they were fooled by the group even as one applicant was hired-on-the-spot and was promised a P1,500 daily wage.
Diaz, who was informed of an ongoing jobs fair in their municipality, grew suspicious of the activity as there were no permission issued to any entity to conduct a jobs fair in their area that time. Arriving at the recruitment venue, she posed as an applicant and began looking for appropriate recruitment permits from the group. The group was apprehended after failing to produce the necessary documents.
The apprehended suspects are facing charges of large-scale illegal recruitment, a no-bail criminal offense, as the local government in Bulan as well as the Bulan Peso are fast-tracking their arraignment. - INQUIRER.net
Woman gets life for illegal recruitment
March 12, 2009, MANILA, Philippines – Nearly 12 years after she was charged in court, a woman was convicted of large scale illegal recruitment and sentenced to life imprisonment.
In a 10-page decision dated March 10, Judge Thelma Bunyi-Medina of the Manila Regional Trial Court Branch 52 ordered Milagros Mendoza to pay a fine of P100,000 and to shoulder the cost of the lawsuit.
Bunyi-Medina also directed Mendoza to return P161,000 and $4,000 to the four complainants who accused her of promising them jobs in a home for the elderly in the United States.
The four were among 13 people who claimed that Mendoza tried to recruit them between Nov. 25, 1995 to Feb. 20, 1997. They added that she was able to convince them to apply for jobs with her after she showed them documents that she owned a home care center in California.
However, a check with the Philippine Overseas and Employment Agency showed that Mendoza was not a licensed recruiter.
Her victims later sought the assistance of the National Bureau of Investigation that conducted an entrapment operation, resulting in Mendoza’s arrest and the filing of charges against her in 1997. - Erika Sauler, Philippine Daily Inquirer
In a 10-page decision dated March 10, Judge Thelma Bunyi-Medina of the Manila Regional Trial Court Branch 52 ordered Milagros Mendoza to pay a fine of P100,000 and to shoulder the cost of the lawsuit.
Bunyi-Medina also directed Mendoza to return P161,000 and $4,000 to the four complainants who accused her of promising them jobs in a home for the elderly in the United States.
The four were among 13 people who claimed that Mendoza tried to recruit them between Nov. 25, 1995 to Feb. 20, 1997. They added that she was able to convince them to apply for jobs with her after she showed them documents that she owned a home care center in California.
However, a check with the Philippine Overseas and Employment Agency showed that Mendoza was not a licensed recruiter.
Her victims later sought the assistance of the National Bureau of Investigation that conducted an entrapment operation, resulting in Mendoza’s arrest and the filing of charges against her in 1997. - Erika Sauler, Philippine Daily Inquirer
Manila government joins POEA drive vs illegal recruitment
August 30, 2008, MANILA, Philippines – The Manila government has joined the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration in its drive against illegal recruiters by signing a memorandum of understanding that will, among others, institutionalize the holding of pre-employment orientation seminars in the city.
The MOU was signed by Mayor Alfredo Lim and POEA Administrator Rosalinda Dimapilis-Baldoz.
Under the agreement, POEA, through its Public Employment Service Office (PESO), will regularly furnish the City Hall with updated lists of licensed agencies and provide information material on the campaign against illegal recruitment such as brochures, pamphlets, posters and copies of recent anti-illegal recruitment laws and regulations.
The POEA will also make available, on request, speakers from among POEA personnel for the seminars. Likewise, it will provide an updated list of government placement branch vacancies for dissemination to constituents along with travel updates and advisories.
The POEA also agreed to provide a courtesy lane for Manila residents in their application for jobs at the POEA Manpower Registry Division provided that such applicant is properly endorsed by the city-PESO.
For its part, City Hall committed to include in its respective programs an aggressive campaign against illegal recruitment; assist in the distribution/reproduction and dissemination of anti-illegal recruitment information materials; and provide venues and participants in the conduct of pre-employment orientation seminars.
Lim said they would also investigate any reported illegal recruitment activity and recommend to POEA the issuance of closure orders against any licensed recruitment establishment committing recruitment violations. - Tina Santos, Philippine Daily Inquirer
The MOU was signed by Mayor Alfredo Lim and POEA Administrator Rosalinda Dimapilis-Baldoz.
Under the agreement, POEA, through its Public Employment Service Office (PESO), will regularly furnish the City Hall with updated lists of licensed agencies and provide information material on the campaign against illegal recruitment such as brochures, pamphlets, posters and copies of recent anti-illegal recruitment laws and regulations.
The POEA will also make available, on request, speakers from among POEA personnel for the seminars. Likewise, it will provide an updated list of government placement branch vacancies for dissemination to constituents along with travel updates and advisories.
The POEA also agreed to provide a courtesy lane for Manila residents in their application for jobs at the POEA Manpower Registry Division provided that such applicant is properly endorsed by the city-PESO.
For its part, City Hall committed to include in its respective programs an aggressive campaign against illegal recruitment; assist in the distribution/reproduction and dissemination of anti-illegal recruitment information materials; and provide venues and participants in the conduct of pre-employment orientation seminars.
Lim said they would also investigate any reported illegal recruitment activity and recommend to POEA the issuance of closure orders against any licensed recruitment establishment committing recruitment violations. - Tina Santos, Philippine Daily Inquirer
An anatomy of a massive illegal recruitment
The case of 137 Filipino drivers in Dubai
June 15, 2009, MANILA, Philippines—It all started last November with an ordinary flier which said: “4,000+ jobs for bus drivers in Dubai.” The paper ad offered a monthly salary of 5,200 dirhams or roughly P67,000. Thousands of these fliers were distributed by a local recruitment agency known as CYM International Services and Placement Agency at different bus terminals all over the country.
And so they came, bus drivers working for a well-known transport company, men who belong to other occupations but knew how to drive, former migrant workers who have worked in the Middle East before, and even a gym instructor. They left their jobs to grab what they thought was an opportunity of a lifetime.
CYM International, licensed with the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA), assured the driver-applicants that after a month’s training in Dubai, they would immediately report to work at the government’s Road and Transport Authority (RTA) as bus drivers.
Lure of the lending firms
CYM charged each applicant a placement fee of P150,300, a violation of existing POEA rules that mandate a fee not beyond the equivalent of the worker’s one month’s salary.
From January to March 2009, about 137 workers were sent by CYM International to Dubai in three batches. Around 40 were left in Manila though they already contracted a loan from the lending company for which they have been harassed. Today, of the 137 drivers, 68 continue to languish in Ajman where they were brought to live in a tenement building right beside a garbage dump. The lucky ones were able to leave Dubai before their tourist visas expired, either to work in Qatar with the help of the Department of Labor and Employment or to return home, then go back to Dubai as legitimate, documented workers.
The Blas F. Ople Policy Center has been helping these drivers in their legal battles since April of this year. In our five years as a non-government organization helping distressed overseas Filipino workers, this is the first case of illegal recruitment and human trafficking that we have ever encountered of this magnitude and with such an elaborate system of deceit and connivance.
Nearly all of the applicants accepted by CYM who couldn’t afford the placement fee were referred to a lending company known as RJJ Lacaba Financing Corporation. A certain Elmer Lim, together with a loan officer of RJJ Lacaba, facilitated the transaction. In two days, checking accounts were opened, cash cards were processed, and documents an inch-thick, as well as more than 20 checks, were signed by the drivers.
Too many checks
According to the drivers, they were neither given time to bring home the documents to read nor furnished copies of whatever it was that they signed. Cabo, one of the drivers, said he and his companions went to Lacaba’s office in the morning and were still signing checks and documents well into the night. Tired, they begged off and asked to just return the following day.
The financing company obviously had some pull with certain banks. Its staff was able to withdraw from the cash cards of the drivers without their knowledge or permission.
When RJJ Lacaba Financing Corporation distributed cash cards from a certain bank to the drivers, the attached receipts showed that several withdrawals had already been made, leaving a balance below a hundred pesos. How could this happen, when their PIN numbers were supposed to be confidential and known only to the owners of these cards?
During a hearing of the Senate Labor Committee chaired by Senator Jose “Jinggoy” Estrada, a bus driver confessed that it was his first time to open a checking account. He simply followed all the instructions of the RJJ Lacaba loan officer. The postdated checks that he signed were all undated, he said. The loan officer asked him to sign several undated checks with two other co-makers.
Later on, the drivers’ pro-bono lawyer Reynaldo Robles, summing up all the checks issued by each of his clients, said he was surprised to learn that each driver-client of RJJ Lacaba owes an aggregate amount of P1.9 million as a result of checks supposedly issued not just to Lacaba but to two insurance companies as well.
Three checks made out to an insurance company by each of the drivers amounted to P345,000. On the day that they signed the checks, the drivers felt rushed into completing all documents and requirements, and their requests for copies of what they signed were denied.
‘Reprocessed’ job orders
As the checks started to fall due and demand letters were sent to their homes, the drivers, some of whom have since returned home, were shocked by the sheer weight of their financial obligations though none of them were ever hired as bus drivers in Dubai as promised by the agency.
CYM International Services and Placement Agency was listed by the POEA as an agency in good standing when the recruitment of drivers was going on. But CYM, which is managed by Connie Paloma, did not have a job order for 4,000 bus drivers to be hired by Dubai’s RTA, as its fliers claimed. It could not have such job orders because the global financial crisis had hit Dubai hard and as a result, RTA had a freeze-hiring policy in place. From the very start, the entire recruitment process was built on sand.
Still, CYM and its Dubai-based agency, Al Toomoh Technical Services Inc. went ahead with its hiring process, enlisting 11 other licensed agencies to “process” the papers of the drivers using different principals or employers in Dubai. This is why the drivers were given employment contracts on the day of their departure. These contracts stated that the 137 workers would be working in Dubai as merchandisers, sales executives, utility helpers, and other positions but not as RTA bus drivers.
All 12 licensed agencies are now under preventive suspension by the POEA.
Based on documents shared by the drivers with the Ople Center, only four workers were actually processed by CYM. The rest of the 133 workers were fanned out to different licensed agencies using job orders that were “reprocessed” or “repro”—a common practice among recruiters.
For a “repro,” an agency can lend the balance of its job orders to another agency for a fee. One agency owner admitted to a staff of the Ople Center that it received P7,500 per head as processing fee from CYM’s Connie Paloma.
“Reprocessing” enables the lead agency to shortcut the process and shepherd its applicants through the POEA without their papers being questioned because the job orders seem in order, at least on paper. Workers leaving under “repro” arrangements become instantly vulnerable to harassment and abuse by their employers and agents abroad because of the disparity in their work and visa documents.
Desperate housewives
The housewives of 68 remaining workers in Dubai have become desperate and continued to borrow money from friends and relatives for remittance to their husbands stranded in Ajman Camp—a pitiful and ironic reversal of roles.
What makes the situation extremely urgent is that out of the remaining 68 drivers, 18 have concrete job offers, this time legitimate, with Emirates Airline Catering. The 18 workers fear that a prolonged delay in the payment of fines could lead to another missed opportunity to earn in Dubai. Only one thing stands in the way of employment—immigration penalties amounting to a rough equivalent of more than P6 million, with daily fines tacked on as weeks pass.
Equally sad is the failure of the children of these housewives to enroll. “It’s so painful but we couldn’t do anything. Some people are even running after us,” one of the housewives said.
Despite their woes, the desperate housewives have found strength in each other, often calling each other up or sending text messages to give updates about pending cases or meeting up at the Ople Center in Pasay City to wait for news.
On Tuesday, Labor Secretary Marianito Roque informed the Blas Ople Center that the immigration penalties of the 68 remaining drivers in Ajman would soon be resolved as an outcome of his talks with Emirates officials last Sunday. The secretary had flown to Dubai for one day just to resolve the matter.
The drivers welcomed this good news with enormous relief and gratitude. Life particularly in Ajman Camp has become even more horrendous as only a single room in the entire building has a working air-condition unit. Because of the intense summer heat in Dubai, the drivers are also in dire need of drinking water, and are reliant at the Office of the Labor Attache for weekly deliveries of water as well as food and diesel to power the building’s electric generator.
‘Repro’ not tolerated
Secretary Roque has also ordered a crackdown on licensed recruitment agencies engaged in the reprocessing of job orders and other forms of illegal recruitment. The POEA decision to cancel the licenses of 12 agencies involved in this scam will undoubtedly send a strong signal to the industry that “repro” will no longer be tolerated.
CYM International Services and Placement Agency has been temporarily closed down. We are now awaiting the decision of the POEA on the administrative complaint for the cancellation of licenses for all 12 conspiring agencies. The drivers also filed a criminal case which is now pending at the Department of Justice.
On June 19, a second hearing will be held at the executive judge’s sala of RTC Manila on our petition for the complainants to be declared as pauper-litigants. Once this petition is approved, the case can be raffled off and hearings on the drivers’ class suit to nullify the financial transactions connected to this illegal recruitment scam shall begin.
Connie Paloma, the CYM’s operations manager who recruited all 137 bus drivers, remains at large and has been spotted one time in Dubai. The request of the Senate to the Department of Foreign Affairs for the cancellation of her passport has been submitted by the Office of the Undersecretary for Migrant Workers’ Affairs to their legal department for further study. - Susan Ople, Philippine Daily Inquirer
June 15, 2009, MANILA, Philippines—It all started last November with an ordinary flier which said: “4,000+ jobs for bus drivers in Dubai.” The paper ad offered a monthly salary of 5,200 dirhams or roughly P67,000. Thousands of these fliers were distributed by a local recruitment agency known as CYM International Services and Placement Agency at different bus terminals all over the country.
And so they came, bus drivers working for a well-known transport company, men who belong to other occupations but knew how to drive, former migrant workers who have worked in the Middle East before, and even a gym instructor. They left their jobs to grab what they thought was an opportunity of a lifetime.
CYM International, licensed with the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA), assured the driver-applicants that after a month’s training in Dubai, they would immediately report to work at the government’s Road and Transport Authority (RTA) as bus drivers.
Lure of the lending firms
CYM charged each applicant a placement fee of P150,300, a violation of existing POEA rules that mandate a fee not beyond the equivalent of the worker’s one month’s salary.
From January to March 2009, about 137 workers were sent by CYM International to Dubai in three batches. Around 40 were left in Manila though they already contracted a loan from the lending company for which they have been harassed. Today, of the 137 drivers, 68 continue to languish in Ajman where they were brought to live in a tenement building right beside a garbage dump. The lucky ones were able to leave Dubai before their tourist visas expired, either to work in Qatar with the help of the Department of Labor and Employment or to return home, then go back to Dubai as legitimate, documented workers.
The Blas F. Ople Policy Center has been helping these drivers in their legal battles since April of this year. In our five years as a non-government organization helping distressed overseas Filipino workers, this is the first case of illegal recruitment and human trafficking that we have ever encountered of this magnitude and with such an elaborate system of deceit and connivance.
Nearly all of the applicants accepted by CYM who couldn’t afford the placement fee were referred to a lending company known as RJJ Lacaba Financing Corporation. A certain Elmer Lim, together with a loan officer of RJJ Lacaba, facilitated the transaction. In two days, checking accounts were opened, cash cards were processed, and documents an inch-thick, as well as more than 20 checks, were signed by the drivers.
Too many checks
According to the drivers, they were neither given time to bring home the documents to read nor furnished copies of whatever it was that they signed. Cabo, one of the drivers, said he and his companions went to Lacaba’s office in the morning and were still signing checks and documents well into the night. Tired, they begged off and asked to just return the following day.
The financing company obviously had some pull with certain banks. Its staff was able to withdraw from the cash cards of the drivers without their knowledge or permission.
When RJJ Lacaba Financing Corporation distributed cash cards from a certain bank to the drivers, the attached receipts showed that several withdrawals had already been made, leaving a balance below a hundred pesos. How could this happen, when their PIN numbers were supposed to be confidential and known only to the owners of these cards?
During a hearing of the Senate Labor Committee chaired by Senator Jose “Jinggoy” Estrada, a bus driver confessed that it was his first time to open a checking account. He simply followed all the instructions of the RJJ Lacaba loan officer. The postdated checks that he signed were all undated, he said. The loan officer asked him to sign several undated checks with two other co-makers.
Later on, the drivers’ pro-bono lawyer Reynaldo Robles, summing up all the checks issued by each of his clients, said he was surprised to learn that each driver-client of RJJ Lacaba owes an aggregate amount of P1.9 million as a result of checks supposedly issued not just to Lacaba but to two insurance companies as well.
Three checks made out to an insurance company by each of the drivers amounted to P345,000. On the day that they signed the checks, the drivers felt rushed into completing all documents and requirements, and their requests for copies of what they signed were denied.
‘Reprocessed’ job orders
As the checks started to fall due and demand letters were sent to their homes, the drivers, some of whom have since returned home, were shocked by the sheer weight of their financial obligations though none of them were ever hired as bus drivers in Dubai as promised by the agency.
CYM International Services and Placement Agency was listed by the POEA as an agency in good standing when the recruitment of drivers was going on. But CYM, which is managed by Connie Paloma, did not have a job order for 4,000 bus drivers to be hired by Dubai’s RTA, as its fliers claimed. It could not have such job orders because the global financial crisis had hit Dubai hard and as a result, RTA had a freeze-hiring policy in place. From the very start, the entire recruitment process was built on sand.
Still, CYM and its Dubai-based agency, Al Toomoh Technical Services Inc. went ahead with its hiring process, enlisting 11 other licensed agencies to “process” the papers of the drivers using different principals or employers in Dubai. This is why the drivers were given employment contracts on the day of their departure. These contracts stated that the 137 workers would be working in Dubai as merchandisers, sales executives, utility helpers, and other positions but not as RTA bus drivers.
All 12 licensed agencies are now under preventive suspension by the POEA.
Based on documents shared by the drivers with the Ople Center, only four workers were actually processed by CYM. The rest of the 133 workers were fanned out to different licensed agencies using job orders that were “reprocessed” or “repro”—a common practice among recruiters.
For a “repro,” an agency can lend the balance of its job orders to another agency for a fee. One agency owner admitted to a staff of the Ople Center that it received P7,500 per head as processing fee from CYM’s Connie Paloma.
“Reprocessing” enables the lead agency to shortcut the process and shepherd its applicants through the POEA without their papers being questioned because the job orders seem in order, at least on paper. Workers leaving under “repro” arrangements become instantly vulnerable to harassment and abuse by their employers and agents abroad because of the disparity in their work and visa documents.
Desperate housewives
The housewives of 68 remaining workers in Dubai have become desperate and continued to borrow money from friends and relatives for remittance to their husbands stranded in Ajman Camp—a pitiful and ironic reversal of roles.
What makes the situation extremely urgent is that out of the remaining 68 drivers, 18 have concrete job offers, this time legitimate, with Emirates Airline Catering. The 18 workers fear that a prolonged delay in the payment of fines could lead to another missed opportunity to earn in Dubai. Only one thing stands in the way of employment—immigration penalties amounting to a rough equivalent of more than P6 million, with daily fines tacked on as weeks pass.
Equally sad is the failure of the children of these housewives to enroll. “It’s so painful but we couldn’t do anything. Some people are even running after us,” one of the housewives said.
Despite their woes, the desperate housewives have found strength in each other, often calling each other up or sending text messages to give updates about pending cases or meeting up at the Ople Center in Pasay City to wait for news.
On Tuesday, Labor Secretary Marianito Roque informed the Blas Ople Center that the immigration penalties of the 68 remaining drivers in Ajman would soon be resolved as an outcome of his talks with Emirates officials last Sunday. The secretary had flown to Dubai for one day just to resolve the matter.
The drivers welcomed this good news with enormous relief and gratitude. Life particularly in Ajman Camp has become even more horrendous as only a single room in the entire building has a working air-condition unit. Because of the intense summer heat in Dubai, the drivers are also in dire need of drinking water, and are reliant at the Office of the Labor Attache for weekly deliveries of water as well as food and diesel to power the building’s electric generator.
‘Repro’ not tolerated
Secretary Roque has also ordered a crackdown on licensed recruitment agencies engaged in the reprocessing of job orders and other forms of illegal recruitment. The POEA decision to cancel the licenses of 12 agencies involved in this scam will undoubtedly send a strong signal to the industry that “repro” will no longer be tolerated.
CYM International Services and Placement Agency has been temporarily closed down. We are now awaiting the decision of the POEA on the administrative complaint for the cancellation of licenses for all 12 conspiring agencies. The drivers also filed a criminal case which is now pending at the Department of Justice.
On June 19, a second hearing will be held at the executive judge’s sala of RTC Manila on our petition for the complainants to be declared as pauper-litigants. Once this petition is approved, the case can be raffled off and hearings on the drivers’ class suit to nullify the financial transactions connected to this illegal recruitment scam shall begin.
Connie Paloma, the CYM’s operations manager who recruited all 137 bus drivers, remains at large and has been spotted one time in Dubai. The request of the Senate to the Department of Foreign Affairs for the cancellation of her passport has been submitted by the Office of the Undersecretary for Migrant Workers’ Affairs to their legal department for further study. - Susan Ople, Philippine Daily Inquirer
Heavier penalties vs illegal recruitment
January 20, 2010, MANILA, Philippines—Illegal recruitment will soon have a sharper definition under the amended version of the Migrant Workers Act of 1995, as Senate on Monday night adopted the bicameral conference committee report amending it.
The bicameral report expanded the definition of illegal recruitment to include reprocessing workers through a job order that pertains to non-existent work, work different from the actual overseas work, or work with a different employer whether registered or not with the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration.
The scheme, also known as contract substitution, has victimized many migrant workers who sign contracts here in the Philippines but execute and enter into new employment contracts upon reaching their destination.
Under the amendments of Republic Act 8042, reprocessing of job orders for OFWs is considered illegal recruitment and any person found guilty of illegal recruitment shall suffer the penalty of imprisonment of not less than 12 years but no more than 20 years, and a fine of not less than P1 million nor more than P2 million.
Moreover, if the illegal recruitment is considered an economic sabotage, the penalty is life imprisonment plus a fine of not less than P2 million and not more than P5 million.
Recruitment through “repro orders” both by licensed and unlicensed agencies was quite rampant in 2008, causing the deployment of 100,000 domestic helpers to Lebanon, Dubai, Jordan, and Syria.
The measure also expressly holds the governing board of the POEA accountable in the deployment of migrant workers.
Under the bill, government officials found responsible for the issuance of permits and allowing the deployment of overseas Filipino workers to countries that do not guarantee or comply with international labor standards shall suffer the penalty of dismissal from service or be disqualified from holding appointive public office for five years. - INQUIRER.net
The bicameral report expanded the definition of illegal recruitment to include reprocessing workers through a job order that pertains to non-existent work, work different from the actual overseas work, or work with a different employer whether registered or not with the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration.
The scheme, also known as contract substitution, has victimized many migrant workers who sign contracts here in the Philippines but execute and enter into new employment contracts upon reaching their destination.
Under the amendments of Republic Act 8042, reprocessing of job orders for OFWs is considered illegal recruitment and any person found guilty of illegal recruitment shall suffer the penalty of imprisonment of not less than 12 years but no more than 20 years, and a fine of not less than P1 million nor more than P2 million.
Moreover, if the illegal recruitment is considered an economic sabotage, the penalty is life imprisonment plus a fine of not less than P2 million and not more than P5 million.
Recruitment through “repro orders” both by licensed and unlicensed agencies was quite rampant in 2008, causing the deployment of 100,000 domestic helpers to Lebanon, Dubai, Jordan, and Syria.
The measure also expressly holds the governing board of the POEA accountable in the deployment of migrant workers.
Under the bill, government officials found responsible for the issuance of permits and allowing the deployment of overseas Filipino workers to countries that do not guarantee or comply with international labor standards shall suffer the penalty of dismissal from service or be disqualified from holding appointive public office for five years. - INQUIRER.net
Saturday, December 18, 2010
RP, Korea sign work safety pact
August 29, 2010: MANILA, Philippines—The Department of Labor and Employment (DoLE) has signed a technical cooperation agreement in the field of occupational safety and health with the Korea Occupational Safety and Health Agency (Kosha), it was learned.
Labor Secretary Rosalinda Baldoz signed the pact for the Philippines while Kosha’s director of Technical Experts Department, Dr. Kwon Hyuck Myun signed in behalf of South Korea.
The agreement aims to help enhance the capability of the DoLE’s Occupational Safety and Health Center in promoting the safety and health of workers at the workplaces in the Philippines and South Korea. It will be implemented for three years, which may be extended upon mutual consent of both parties.
The agreement follows a number of work-related accidents that cost the lives of Filipino workers in the Korean-owned Hanjin shipyard in Subic last year.
In her remarks after the signing of the agreement, Baldoz said the agreement will usher in a healthful and safe environment for Filipino workers in many Korean companies in the Philippines.
For his part, Dr. Myun of Kosha said the agreement will also benefit Korea. It is a way for Korea to repay the technical cooperation it got from the Philippines during the Korean War. From now on, he said, Kosha will communicate closely with Philippine stakeholders on occupational safety and health concerns.
Undersecretary for Labor Standards and Social Protection Lourdes Trasmonte, who witnessed the signing of the agreement, said that she wants Kosha, through this agreement, to share its expertise in training, benchmarking, and replication of companies’ best practices.
The scope of cooperation under the agreement covers the exchange of experts for training and education, consultancy, seminar/workshop or for research program on topics of mutual interest to both countries, and exchange of technical information and materials on occupational safety and health free of charge or at a reasonable price.
Bureau of Working Conditions (BWC) Director Ma. Brenda L. Villafuerte, who provided a background prior to the signing of the agreement, said Kosha aims to forge similar agreements with all member-countries of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean). She said that Korea had recently entered into technical cooperation agreements with Indonesia, Mongolia, Laos, and now the Philippines.
She said that under the agreement, a technical working group composed of representatives from Kosha and DoLE will identify activities that will enhance the capability of the labor inspectorate, particularly in conducting Work Environment Measurement (WEM). The group will also determine the kind of assistance that the Occupational Safety and Health Center needs in procuring the necessary equipment.
Aside from Trasmonte and Villafuerte, Occupational Safety and Health Center Director Ma. Teresita S. Cucueco and Labor Communications Officer Director Nicon F. Famerona also witnessed the signing.
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Monday, November 29, 2010
No ban on sending workers to South Korea, says Malacañang
November 28, 2010 - THERE IS no ban on sending of workers to South Korea, officials said yesterday, with concerned agencies reviewing future deployment.
Deputy Spokesman Abigail D. Valte clarified a Palace statement at the weekend which stated that President Benigno S. C. Aquino III has suspended the deployment of overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) to South Korea.
"There was confusion. Some media thought there’s a ban on deployment. It’s not the case," she said over state-run dzRB Radyo ng Bayan.
Reports about the policy circulated after Labor Secretary Rosalinda D. Baldoz said in a statement that the departure of 55 OFWs for South Korea last week has been deferred to Dec. 7.
"There is no order to suspend temporarily the deployment of overseas Filipino workers to South Korea," Ms. Baldoz clarified in a statement yesterday.
"The government team, headed by Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) Secretary Alberto Romulo and which the President had directed to assess the situation, had recommended this decision [deferment of departure] as a matter of caution and prudence," Ms. Baldoz added.
Further decisions to deploy OFWs, she said, will have to be reviewed by the team of Special Envoy Roy A. Cimatu of the Presidential Middle East Preparedness Committee. The group has been ordered to go to Seoul to monitor the situation.
The Palace said on Friday the government has a contingency plan for the over 50,000 Filipinos in South Korea in case hostilities escalate ,with the President directing the DFA to conduct test runs of evacuation strategies.
The Office of the President has also conferred with officials of major local carriers for assistance should there be a need to evacuate Filipinos.
The fragile peace in the Korean peninsula was shaken Tuesday after the North shelled civilian communities in the South Korean island of Yeonpyeong.
The North has claimed it was provoked by the South. Tensions heightened as United States and South Korean forces held earlier scheduled joint military exercises in the area at the weekend, with Washington sending the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier USS George Washington and several warships. -- Ana Mae G. Roa, http://www.bworldonline.com
Deputy Spokesman Abigail D. Valte clarified a Palace statement at the weekend which stated that President Benigno S. C. Aquino III has suspended the deployment of overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) to South Korea.
"There was confusion. Some media thought there’s a ban on deployment. It’s not the case," she said over state-run dzRB Radyo ng Bayan.
Reports about the policy circulated after Labor Secretary Rosalinda D. Baldoz said in a statement that the departure of 55 OFWs for South Korea last week has been deferred to Dec. 7.
"There is no order to suspend temporarily the deployment of overseas Filipino workers to South Korea," Ms. Baldoz clarified in a statement yesterday.
"The government team, headed by Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) Secretary Alberto Romulo and which the President had directed to assess the situation, had recommended this decision [deferment of departure] as a matter of caution and prudence," Ms. Baldoz added.
Further decisions to deploy OFWs, she said, will have to be reviewed by the team of Special Envoy Roy A. Cimatu of the Presidential Middle East Preparedness Committee. The group has been ordered to go to Seoul to monitor the situation.
The Palace said on Friday the government has a contingency plan for the over 50,000 Filipinos in South Korea in case hostilities escalate ,with the President directing the DFA to conduct test runs of evacuation strategies.
The Office of the President has also conferred with officials of major local carriers for assistance should there be a need to evacuate Filipinos.
The fragile peace in the Korean peninsula was shaken Tuesday after the North shelled civilian communities in the South Korean island of Yeonpyeong.
The North has claimed it was provoked by the South. Tensions heightened as United States and South Korean forces held earlier scheduled joint military exercises in the area at the weekend, with Washington sending the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier USS George Washington and several warships. -- Ana Mae G. Roa, http://www.bworldonline.com
Plans for Filipino social club get a boost
Nov 29, 2010: DUBAI // After 20 years on the drawing board, plans to build a Filipino social club to serve Dubai and the Northern Emirates are gathering steam as a representative of the consulate prepares to meet authorities to secure a plot of land from the Government.
Analiza Magno Concepcion, the chairman of an organising committee that governs 90 Filipino groups in Dubai and the Northern Emirates, said creating such a hub was the "ultimate goal" of her one-year term.
The Philippine consul-general, Benito Valeriano, is to meet Dubai authorities this week to discuss the issue.
"It's easy for us to build it, once we secure a plot from the authorities," said Ms Concepcion, who will also attend the meeting. "If 400,000 Filipinos here donate Dh5 each, it would definitely be a good start."
In November last year, Grace Princesa, the Philippine ambassador to the UAE, said that establishing community centres in the different emirates, where her compatriots could meet, was a top priority.
"We should all work together in achieving this goal," Ms Princesa said this week. "If allowed by the local authorities, these centres would be a good way to showcase our world-class products, conduct financial literacy courses and other reintegration programmes."
Jun Tupas, 56, a regional quality manager in Dubai who has lived in the UAE for the past 26 years, said the project was great news for the Filipino community.
"We've been dreaming about a Filipino social club for the past 20 years," he said.
"It will be an ideal place for the heads of the community organisations to meet in and conduct training programmes, and for our compatriots to engage in social, cultural and sport activities."
To kickstart the financial drive, the community is preparing for the Bayanihan 2010 celebration, to be held on December 10 at The Philippine School in Rashidiya district. The day will serve as an important fundraiser for the social club, Ms Princesa said.
Nicasio Atienza, 43, a maintenance engineer in Dubai, runs the Dubai chapter of the Alpha Phi Omega fraternity and said its members would support the campaign to raise funds for the proposed club.
"It was a dream of those who lived and worked here for many years," he said. "The former leaders of the community had earlier attempted to work on this project, but it didn't materialise."
Grayson Servinas, 29, a warehouse manager in Dubai and a co-founder of the Confederation of Ilocano Associations in Dubai, said his organisation would pitch in with fundraising. "It would be great to have our own place for conferences and other social gatherings," he said.
Most of the 600,000 Filipinos who live and work in the Emirates are located in Dubai and the Northern Emirates, according to a 2008 stock estimate by the Commission on Filipinos Overseas in Manila. About 120,000 are in Abu Dhabi and Al Ain. - Ramona Ruiz (rruiz@thenational.ae), http://www.thenational.ae
Analiza Magno Concepcion, the chairman of an organising committee that governs 90 Filipino groups in Dubai and the Northern Emirates, said creating such a hub was the "ultimate goal" of her one-year term.
The Philippine consul-general, Benito Valeriano, is to meet Dubai authorities this week to discuss the issue.
"It's easy for us to build it, once we secure a plot from the authorities," said Ms Concepcion, who will also attend the meeting. "If 400,000 Filipinos here donate Dh5 each, it would definitely be a good start."
In November last year, Grace Princesa, the Philippine ambassador to the UAE, said that establishing community centres in the different emirates, where her compatriots could meet, was a top priority.
"We should all work together in achieving this goal," Ms Princesa said this week. "If allowed by the local authorities, these centres would be a good way to showcase our world-class products, conduct financial literacy courses and other reintegration programmes."
Jun Tupas, 56, a regional quality manager in Dubai who has lived in the UAE for the past 26 years, said the project was great news for the Filipino community.
"We've been dreaming about a Filipino social club for the past 20 years," he said.
"It will be an ideal place for the heads of the community organisations to meet in and conduct training programmes, and for our compatriots to engage in social, cultural and sport activities."
To kickstart the financial drive, the community is preparing for the Bayanihan 2010 celebration, to be held on December 10 at The Philippine School in Rashidiya district. The day will serve as an important fundraiser for the social club, Ms Princesa said.
Nicasio Atienza, 43, a maintenance engineer in Dubai, runs the Dubai chapter of the Alpha Phi Omega fraternity and said its members would support the campaign to raise funds for the proposed club.
"It was a dream of those who lived and worked here for many years," he said. "The former leaders of the community had earlier attempted to work on this project, but it didn't materialise."
Grayson Servinas, 29, a warehouse manager in Dubai and a co-founder of the Confederation of Ilocano Associations in Dubai, said his organisation would pitch in with fundraising. "It would be great to have our own place for conferences and other social gatherings," he said.
Most of the 600,000 Filipinos who live and work in the Emirates are located in Dubai and the Northern Emirates, according to a 2008 stock estimate by the Commission on Filipinos Overseas in Manila. About 120,000 are in Abu Dhabi and Al Ain. - Ramona Ruiz (rruiz@thenational.ae), http://www.thenational.ae
Sunday, November 28, 2010
Seoul Diary: Living & Working in Seoul, Korea
by David Ritchie
Want to see how agreeable city life can be? Come with me to Seoul, where I live and work.
Get off the subway at Kyongbokkung, site of ancient Kyongbok Palace. Look around the grounds for a few minutes if you like, and then stroll out through Kwanghwamun Gate and down Sejong-ro, Seoul's equivalent of Park Avenue.
Click here to read the article.
Want to see how agreeable city life can be? Come with me to Seoul, where I live and work.
Get off the subway at Kyongbokkung, site of ancient Kyongbok Palace. Look around the grounds for a few minutes if you like, and then stroll out through Kwanghwamun Gate and down Sejong-ro, Seoul's equivalent of Park Avenue.
Click here to read the article.
Saturday, November 27, 2010
Abuse Of Immigrant Workers In South Korea
27 February, 2010- An Amnesty International report, entitled “Disposable labour: Rights of migrant workers in South Korea,” documents the abhorrent working conditions that immigrants face. The study, released last October, clearly establishes that while South Korea was one of the first Asian countries to formally recognise the rights of foreign migrant workers, its Employment Permit System (EPS) does nothing more than legitimise the brutal exploitation of cheap labour from poorer countries.
Under the EPS, introduced in 2004, small and medium enterprises (SMEs) that employ less than 300 workers can hire migrants from 15 approved countries, mainly from China (especially Korean-Chinese), Vietnam, Philippines and Thailand. As of October 2009, there were about 680,000 migrant workers in South Korea, mainly working in factories producing textiles and electronics, but also involved in prostitution.
South Korea’s export-led economy has been increasingly squeezed, as it cannot compete with China’s vast cheap labour, nor is it technologically advanced enough to rival Japan. Introducing foreign low-cost labour became a key policy, not only to boost profitability for the corporations directly hiring them, but to use them to undermine the wages and conditions of the working class as whole. More than five million workers, or one-third of the South Korean workforce, have already been made contract workers, receiving just 60 percent of the average wages of permanent workers.
The report noted: “Although low-skilled South Korean workers also suffer from some of the abusive work conditions documented in this report, migrant workers are at greater risk because of their status. Both regular and irregular migrant workers face discrimination, and verbal and physical abuse in the workplace. They are required to work long hours and night shifts, many without overtime pay, and often have their wages withheld. On average, they are paid less than South Korean workers in similar jobs and are at greater risk of industrial accidents with inadequate medical treatment or compensation. EPS workers are tied to their employer and face restrictions in changing jobs, making them particularly vulnerable to abuse and exploitation such as unfair dismissal.”
The introduction of cheap immigrant labour is bound up with the contradictions of South Korea’s industrialisation. Large Korean corporations are able to move parts of production overseas, where wages are much lower than in South Korea. But Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs), with no capital to do so, can remain competitive only by relying on migrant workers who are attracted to South Korea by the illusion that they will be offered good jobs and earn money to support their families. From the 1980s, illegal migrant workers appeared in South Korea, forcing the government to introduce various schemes in the 1990s to regulate this market.
Before 2004, the system allowed the Korea Federation of Small and Medium Businesses to extract exorbitant recruitment fees from foreign workers, forcing many to incur large debts, thus leading them to stay as “irregular” workers beyond the legally allowed three-year period. Proposed legislation for limited reform of the migrant work scheme was put on hold at the outbreak of Asian financial crisis in 1997–98.
By 2002, a staggering 85 percent of the low-skilled migrant workers were “irregular”—a situation that led to the introduction of the EPS, under the pretext of providing basic protections lacking in the former programs.
The EPS, however, traps workers even before they leave their home countries. Workers seeking to immigrate often must pay outrageous broker fees in order to obtain work permits. Amnesty International reports that these broker fees, on average, cost $US2,000, but can go as high as $9,500. In other words, workers are often in debt even before they arrive.
Workers under the EPS are bound to their employers for a three-year period, during which they are forbidden to change jobs without their employers’ permission. Even then, workers may shift employment only four times, making it less likely that they will complain about poor working conditions. On top of that, workers are allotted two months to find a new job after leaving an employer, or they become irregular, a status most workers want to avoid.
What makes the situation worse is that employers must renew workers’ contracts each year. This is to ensure that workers remain submissive, no matter how bad the conditions, placing migrant workers at the risk of verbal and physical abuse, sexual harassment and the withholding of wages.
According to a 2008 survey cited by Amnesty International, more than 50 percent of migrant workers indicated that their wages, working hours, provision of food and accommodation, and breaks and rest days were different from what their employer had originally promised. Wages were often withheld from migrant workers, especially in the months leading up to the conclusion of a contract, because employers knew that workers would not have the time or ability to file a complaint and stay in South Korea long enough to recover lost wages.
Many migrant workers find that the accommodation promised to them is nothing more than shipping containers on land owned by the company. Migrants are also forced to work long hours with few rest days. A Filipino worker employed at an electronics factory told Amnesty: “We were given only one day off per month and sometimes when it was busy, the management would even make you work on your free day. Korean workers were able to take days off regularly and didn’t have to work such crazy hours like we did. On top of all this, our severance pay did not include overtime, which is significant considering the amount of overtime we did.”
For many female migrant workers, sexual harassment—which can take place in the workplace or in their living quarters—becomes the norm. Out of fear of losing their jobs, many choose not to report sexual abuse. Even if a woman does so, she often has little choice but to stay at the company with which she is employed, until the case is resolved. In some cases, that can take two months, but the process can drag on for much longer because investigations are conducted at the convenience of the employer.
The ugliest exploitation of female workers occurs in the “entertainment sector”. Women are unknowingly recruited to be prostitutes, which is illegal but essentially sanctioned by the government, which issues special E-6 visas for them. Amnesty noted: “Upon arrival in South Korea, they discover that their job in reality is to serve and solicit drinks from US soldiers and at some establishments they are forced to have sex with their clients. With little recourse available to them, trafficked E-6 workers either remain in their jobs or run away. Those who run away are doubly victimised, first as trafficked women and then as ‘illegal’ migrants under South Korean law.”
Just as the global financial crisis erupted in September 2008, the government announced it would “harshly deal with illegal foreigners” and halve the estimated 220,000 illegal migrant workers by 2012. The result is dramatically increased, and sometimes violent, raids in workplaces, streets, markets and even homes, resulting in deportations. At the same time, thousands of foreign workers are being recruited into the country each month “legally”.
This fact alone should make it abundantly clear the government’s true purpose. By last year, one third of migrant workers had become “irregular”. The threat of illegal status is used to provide the capitalist elite with cheap labour that is more compliant and easily manipulated, in order to lower the wages and conditions of the entire working class. - By Ben McGrath, WSWS.org
Under the EPS, introduced in 2004, small and medium enterprises (SMEs) that employ less than 300 workers can hire migrants from 15 approved countries, mainly from China (especially Korean-Chinese), Vietnam, Philippines and Thailand. As of October 2009, there were about 680,000 migrant workers in South Korea, mainly working in factories producing textiles and electronics, but also involved in prostitution.
South Korea’s export-led economy has been increasingly squeezed, as it cannot compete with China’s vast cheap labour, nor is it technologically advanced enough to rival Japan. Introducing foreign low-cost labour became a key policy, not only to boost profitability for the corporations directly hiring them, but to use them to undermine the wages and conditions of the working class as whole. More than five million workers, or one-third of the South Korean workforce, have already been made contract workers, receiving just 60 percent of the average wages of permanent workers.
The report noted: “Although low-skilled South Korean workers also suffer from some of the abusive work conditions documented in this report, migrant workers are at greater risk because of their status. Both regular and irregular migrant workers face discrimination, and verbal and physical abuse in the workplace. They are required to work long hours and night shifts, many without overtime pay, and often have their wages withheld. On average, they are paid less than South Korean workers in similar jobs and are at greater risk of industrial accidents with inadequate medical treatment or compensation. EPS workers are tied to their employer and face restrictions in changing jobs, making them particularly vulnerable to abuse and exploitation such as unfair dismissal.”
The introduction of cheap immigrant labour is bound up with the contradictions of South Korea’s industrialisation. Large Korean corporations are able to move parts of production overseas, where wages are much lower than in South Korea. But Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs), with no capital to do so, can remain competitive only by relying on migrant workers who are attracted to South Korea by the illusion that they will be offered good jobs and earn money to support their families. From the 1980s, illegal migrant workers appeared in South Korea, forcing the government to introduce various schemes in the 1990s to regulate this market.
Before 2004, the system allowed the Korea Federation of Small and Medium Businesses to extract exorbitant recruitment fees from foreign workers, forcing many to incur large debts, thus leading them to stay as “irregular” workers beyond the legally allowed three-year period. Proposed legislation for limited reform of the migrant work scheme was put on hold at the outbreak of Asian financial crisis in 1997–98.
By 2002, a staggering 85 percent of the low-skilled migrant workers were “irregular”—a situation that led to the introduction of the EPS, under the pretext of providing basic protections lacking in the former programs.
The EPS, however, traps workers even before they leave their home countries. Workers seeking to immigrate often must pay outrageous broker fees in order to obtain work permits. Amnesty International reports that these broker fees, on average, cost $US2,000, but can go as high as $9,500. In other words, workers are often in debt even before they arrive.
Workers under the EPS are bound to their employers for a three-year period, during which they are forbidden to change jobs without their employers’ permission. Even then, workers may shift employment only four times, making it less likely that they will complain about poor working conditions. On top of that, workers are allotted two months to find a new job after leaving an employer, or they become irregular, a status most workers want to avoid.
What makes the situation worse is that employers must renew workers’ contracts each year. This is to ensure that workers remain submissive, no matter how bad the conditions, placing migrant workers at the risk of verbal and physical abuse, sexual harassment and the withholding of wages.
According to a 2008 survey cited by Amnesty International, more than 50 percent of migrant workers indicated that their wages, working hours, provision of food and accommodation, and breaks and rest days were different from what their employer had originally promised. Wages were often withheld from migrant workers, especially in the months leading up to the conclusion of a contract, because employers knew that workers would not have the time or ability to file a complaint and stay in South Korea long enough to recover lost wages.
Many migrant workers find that the accommodation promised to them is nothing more than shipping containers on land owned by the company. Migrants are also forced to work long hours with few rest days. A Filipino worker employed at an electronics factory told Amnesty: “We were given only one day off per month and sometimes when it was busy, the management would even make you work on your free day. Korean workers were able to take days off regularly and didn’t have to work such crazy hours like we did. On top of all this, our severance pay did not include overtime, which is significant considering the amount of overtime we did.”
For many female migrant workers, sexual harassment—which can take place in the workplace or in their living quarters—becomes the norm. Out of fear of losing their jobs, many choose not to report sexual abuse. Even if a woman does so, she often has little choice but to stay at the company with which she is employed, until the case is resolved. In some cases, that can take two months, but the process can drag on for much longer because investigations are conducted at the convenience of the employer.
The ugliest exploitation of female workers occurs in the “entertainment sector”. Women are unknowingly recruited to be prostitutes, which is illegal but essentially sanctioned by the government, which issues special E-6 visas for them. Amnesty noted: “Upon arrival in South Korea, they discover that their job in reality is to serve and solicit drinks from US soldiers and at some establishments they are forced to have sex with their clients. With little recourse available to them, trafficked E-6 workers either remain in their jobs or run away. Those who run away are doubly victimised, first as trafficked women and then as ‘illegal’ migrants under South Korean law.”
Just as the global financial crisis erupted in September 2008, the government announced it would “harshly deal with illegal foreigners” and halve the estimated 220,000 illegal migrant workers by 2012. The result is dramatically increased, and sometimes violent, raids in workplaces, streets, markets and even homes, resulting in deportations. At the same time, thousands of foreign workers are being recruited into the country each month “legally”.
This fact alone should make it abundantly clear the government’s true purpose. By last year, one third of migrant workers had become “irregular”. The threat of illegal status is used to provide the capitalist elite with cheap labour that is more compliant and easily manipulated, in order to lower the wages and conditions of the entire working class. - By Ben McGrath, WSWS.org
Friday, November 26, 2010
Verdict favours Filipino workers
November 26, 2010 - THE Dubai Labour Court (DLC) has ruled in favour of four cleaners who are among 83 women workers from the Philippines, who had filed a case against their Emirati employer for abandonment since 2009.
On Thursday, Labour Attache for Dubai and the Northern Emirates Amilbahar Amilasan told The Gulf Today that the DLC had decided that Maria Elena Amba, Merly Perez, Jonalyn Dordas and Mary Grace Teneros, be paid their two months salary of Dhs1,400 each by Lavito Cleaning Services firm owner KHAM.
Amilasan said the four are expected to receive their salary 15 days after the DLC announced the verdict on Nov. 24.
Amilasan said the DLC gave weight on KHAM’s non-appearance throughout the trial, thereby waiving his right to contest the complaint for the non-payment of salaries.
He said, Dubai Ministry of Labour (MoL) would release the payment for the salaries, secured from the bond KHAM had deposited with the government office, when he hired over 90 Filipino women cleaners.
Of the over 90, at least seven had gone home for health reasons and after experiencing delayed salaries, inhumane living conditions.
“The court has also allowed the four to seek re-employment in the UAE,” Amilasan said.
Assistant Labour Attache Venus Abad said the employment papers of the four women are already being processed by the Micro for Services cleaning firm.
Micro for Services is one of two companies-the other one is Prime Technical Services-which have been accredited by the Philippine Overseas Labour Office in Dubai (Polo-Dubai)-to employ at least 25 of the 83 women.
These firms passed all of the standards set by the Philippine government in terms of the employees’ benefits and privileges, the physical existence of their offices as well as the accommodations, Abad said.
The four women said they will be cleaners at a government school in Fujeirah.
They were the first to lodge the complaint against KHAM before the MoL on July 27, 2010.
They filed a case against KHAM before the Naif Police Station for the retrieval of their passports on Aug.10.
DLC hearings began on Sept.3.
Thereafter, the DLC has been attending to three other related cases filed against KHAM by the other 79.
The 79 must be paid Dhs7,000 each, once they win their respective cases, based on the MoL computations and analysis of their gratuities, unpaid salaries and other unmet benefits and privileges, Amilasan said.
It was learnt that 55 of the 79 are currently sheltered at the Polo-Dubai Filipino Workers Resource Centre.
Of these, 11 had expressed their desire to return home and awaiting their airline tickets to be shouldered in the meantime by the Philippines’ Overseas Workers Welfare Administration.
As stipulated in the laws governing the overseas employment of Filipinos, the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA) shall press for the manpower agencies of these women to pay for their repatriation tickets.
These are the Al Dana in Dubai and the Al Farabi in Metro Manila.
Al Dana remains to be blacklisted by Polo-Dubai from May 2, 2009 when then Labour Attache Virginia Calves received the first major complaint of contract substitution (salary down to Dhs800 from Dhs1,800) contrary to contracts signed in Metro Manila.
Al Farabi was shut down by the POEA. - Mariecar Jara-Puyod, http://gulftoday.ae
On Thursday, Labour Attache for Dubai and the Northern Emirates Amilbahar Amilasan told The Gulf Today that the DLC had decided that Maria Elena Amba, Merly Perez, Jonalyn Dordas and Mary Grace Teneros, be paid their two months salary of Dhs1,400 each by Lavito Cleaning Services firm owner KHAM.
Amilasan said the four are expected to receive their salary 15 days after the DLC announced the verdict on Nov. 24.
Amilasan said the DLC gave weight on KHAM’s non-appearance throughout the trial, thereby waiving his right to contest the complaint for the non-payment of salaries.
He said, Dubai Ministry of Labour (MoL) would release the payment for the salaries, secured from the bond KHAM had deposited with the government office, when he hired over 90 Filipino women cleaners.
Of the over 90, at least seven had gone home for health reasons and after experiencing delayed salaries, inhumane living conditions.
“The court has also allowed the four to seek re-employment in the UAE,” Amilasan said.
Assistant Labour Attache Venus Abad said the employment papers of the four women are already being processed by the Micro for Services cleaning firm.
Micro for Services is one of two companies-the other one is Prime Technical Services-which have been accredited by the Philippine Overseas Labour Office in Dubai (Polo-Dubai)-to employ at least 25 of the 83 women.
These firms passed all of the standards set by the Philippine government in terms of the employees’ benefits and privileges, the physical existence of their offices as well as the accommodations, Abad said.
The four women said they will be cleaners at a government school in Fujeirah.
They were the first to lodge the complaint against KHAM before the MoL on July 27, 2010.
They filed a case against KHAM before the Naif Police Station for the retrieval of their passports on Aug.10.
DLC hearings began on Sept.3.
Thereafter, the DLC has been attending to three other related cases filed against KHAM by the other 79.
The 79 must be paid Dhs7,000 each, once they win their respective cases, based on the MoL computations and analysis of their gratuities, unpaid salaries and other unmet benefits and privileges, Amilasan said.
It was learnt that 55 of the 79 are currently sheltered at the Polo-Dubai Filipino Workers Resource Centre.
Of these, 11 had expressed their desire to return home and awaiting their airline tickets to be shouldered in the meantime by the Philippines’ Overseas Workers Welfare Administration.
As stipulated in the laws governing the overseas employment of Filipinos, the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA) shall press for the manpower agencies of these women to pay for their repatriation tickets.
These are the Al Dana in Dubai and the Al Farabi in Metro Manila.
Al Dana remains to be blacklisted by Polo-Dubai from May 2, 2009 when then Labour Attache Virginia Calves received the first major complaint of contract substitution (salary down to Dhs800 from Dhs1,800) contrary to contracts signed in Metro Manila.
Al Farabi was shut down by the POEA. - Mariecar Jara-Puyod, http://gulftoday.ae
Sunday, November 21, 2010
Filipino Scholar Conquers South Korean Airwaves
September 11, 2008: SEOUL, South Korea-”Ang programang ito ay para sa ating lahat!” (This program is for all of us) DJ Regina greets her listeners to inspire and brighten up the Filipino community on her daily radio program for the multicultural family broadcast in South Korea.
Sponsored by Woongjin foundation in partnership with Digital Radio Kiss and Digital Skynet, this radio program is the first to showcase Filipino OPM songs with current news and information related to labor, tourism and the daily lives of Filipino expatriates in the Korean peninsula.
DJ Regina or Maria Regina Panol Arquiza said that it was the Philippine Embassy that informed her organization, Pinoy Iskolar in Korea (PIKO), about the urgent need for a radio broadcaster to address Filipino women married to Koreans.
Before she started to start conquering the Korean airwaves, it took a few months of advertisements in different Filipino communities in metropolitan Seoul and nearby provinces and even an announcement by Philippine Ambassador Luis Cruz in Catholic churches for the long search to finally discover Regina, a scholar of Media Studies, Advertising and Public Relations in Ewah Womans University.
St. Scholastica’s College graduate
Regina earned a Bachelor of Arts in Mass Communications, minor in Print Journalism in 2005.
“There is one very important quote that my favorite professor in St. Scho was always telling us,” she says, “‘If you educate a man, you educate an individual but if you educate a woman, you educate a community” and I won’t forget it,” said DJ Regina.
The radio program is a way for her to entertain and educate her fellow women. “It isn’t just about knowing the issues, it’s more on understanding the heart of the issues,” she added.
Born in Camarines Norte
The 24 year-old Bicolana, now the first Filipino radio broadcaster in South Korea, was born on Feb. 1, 1984 in Daet, Camarines Norte where her parents Reynaldo and Julieta Arquiza ran an agriculture business.
As the youngest in the family, she has fond memories of sharing dreams about working for the Filipino community outside the Philippines with her sister Maria Soledad and brother Rey Franco. Regina shared the early achievements of her siblings but added that she’s proud to be the most diligent and hardworking.
“ I really feel so blessed for having such a supportive and loving family – they inspired me the most to conquer my dreams through God-given talents and share the passion in this kind of endeavor,” she added.
Work and Studies in South Korea
Regina needed to make adjustments in her daily routine because she now needs to prepare her scripts for the program as she keeps her scholarship in one of the top universities in Seoul.
She has also become an instant public figure among the various Filipino communities, featured in leading national broadsheets like The Chosun Ilbo and JoongAng Daily, and TV programs like MBC, SBS and KBS of South Korea.
“Before the program started, I read a lot of articles about migrant women in Korea and other parts of the world for I‘ve learned that there are so many issues and problems that make me value my worth as a woman and take the opportunity to become an instrument in touching the lives of other migrants, especially women,” Regina said.
There are two difficult things that challenge her. “The first is understanding deeply the issues related to Filipina migrants with Korean spouses in Korea. It has been said that there will always be two sides in a coin. In this case I have to understand both sides of the issues, and that requires patience and deep analysis of the problems at hand.
“The second thing I consider difficult in this is the Korean language. Proficiency in it is very important to fully understand the existing issues written or even broadcast in this country,” she continued.
Regina’s program, aired at 3 am, 9am, 3 pm and 9 pm, is broadcast in four languages, with Chinese, Vietnamese and Thai also part of the multicultural Family Broadcast on Skylife Channel 855, Cable TV thru C&M Channel 312 and websites thru Woongjin Foundation: www.wjfoundation.or.kr and Digital Radio KISS.
“I am expecting that this multilingual radio broadcasting program is going to serve as a bridge to the gap between Koreans and Filipinos. It’s about time for both sides to understand each other’s cultures and thoughts more deeply. And then, I do have great hope that this program will help Filipino migrants enhance their cultural identity and it will serve as a channel to disseminate relevant information in empowering the people with information,” said DJ Regina. - Elizer Peñaranda, INQUIRER.net
Sponsored by Woongjin foundation in partnership with Digital Radio Kiss and Digital Skynet, this radio program is the first to showcase Filipino OPM songs with current news and information related to labor, tourism and the daily lives of Filipino expatriates in the Korean peninsula.
DJ Regina or Maria Regina Panol Arquiza said that it was the Philippine Embassy that informed her organization, Pinoy Iskolar in Korea (PIKO), about the urgent need for a radio broadcaster to address Filipino women married to Koreans.
Before she started to start conquering the Korean airwaves, it took a few months of advertisements in different Filipino communities in metropolitan Seoul and nearby provinces and even an announcement by Philippine Ambassador Luis Cruz in Catholic churches for the long search to finally discover Regina, a scholar of Media Studies, Advertising and Public Relations in Ewah Womans University.
St. Scholastica’s College graduate
Regina earned a Bachelor of Arts in Mass Communications, minor in Print Journalism in 2005.
“There is one very important quote that my favorite professor in St. Scho was always telling us,” she says, “‘If you educate a man, you educate an individual but if you educate a woman, you educate a community” and I won’t forget it,” said DJ Regina.
The radio program is a way for her to entertain and educate her fellow women. “It isn’t just about knowing the issues, it’s more on understanding the heart of the issues,” she added.
Born in Camarines Norte
The 24 year-old Bicolana, now the first Filipino radio broadcaster in South Korea, was born on Feb. 1, 1984 in Daet, Camarines Norte where her parents Reynaldo and Julieta Arquiza ran an agriculture business.
As the youngest in the family, she has fond memories of sharing dreams about working for the Filipino community outside the Philippines with her sister Maria Soledad and brother Rey Franco. Regina shared the early achievements of her siblings but added that she’s proud to be the most diligent and hardworking.
“ I really feel so blessed for having such a supportive and loving family – they inspired me the most to conquer my dreams through God-given talents and share the passion in this kind of endeavor,” she added.
Work and Studies in South Korea
Regina needed to make adjustments in her daily routine because she now needs to prepare her scripts for the program as she keeps her scholarship in one of the top universities in Seoul.
She has also become an instant public figure among the various Filipino communities, featured in leading national broadsheets like The Chosun Ilbo and JoongAng Daily, and TV programs like MBC, SBS and KBS of South Korea.
“Before the program started, I read a lot of articles about migrant women in Korea and other parts of the world for I‘ve learned that there are so many issues and problems that make me value my worth as a woman and take the opportunity to become an instrument in touching the lives of other migrants, especially women,” Regina said.
There are two difficult things that challenge her. “The first is understanding deeply the issues related to Filipina migrants with Korean spouses in Korea. It has been said that there will always be two sides in a coin. In this case I have to understand both sides of the issues, and that requires patience and deep analysis of the problems at hand.
“The second thing I consider difficult in this is the Korean language. Proficiency in it is very important to fully understand the existing issues written or even broadcast in this country,” she continued.
Regina’s program, aired at 3 am, 9am, 3 pm and 9 pm, is broadcast in four languages, with Chinese, Vietnamese and Thai also part of the multicultural Family Broadcast on Skylife Channel 855, Cable TV thru C&M Channel 312 and websites thru Woongjin Foundation: www.wjfoundation.or.kr and Digital Radio KISS.
“I am expecting that this multilingual radio broadcasting program is going to serve as a bridge to the gap between Koreans and Filipinos. It’s about time for both sides to understand each other’s cultures and thoughts more deeply. And then, I do have great hope that this program will help Filipino migrants enhance their cultural identity and it will serve as a channel to disseminate relevant information in empowering the people with information,” said DJ Regina. - Elizer Peñaranda, INQUIRER.net
S. Korea, Japan have world's fastest Internet links
February 02, 2010: TOKYO—East Asian countries led by South Korea, Hong Kong and Japan are the best wired in the world with the highest number of fast broadband connections to the Internet, a recent report has found.
South Korea boasts the world's highest average connection speed at 14.6 Megabytes per second (Mbps) and also has six of Asia's ten cities with the fastest link-ups, all with average speeds above 15 Mbps.
Japan had the second highest average connection speed of 7.9 Mbps, followed by the Chinese territory of Hong Kong with 7.6 Mbps, said the report by US-based network provider Akamai Technologies.
The other countries in the top ten are Romania, followed by Sweden, Ireland, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Denmark and the Czech Republic, with the United States at 18th place, with an average speed of 3.9 Mbps.
The survey classifies "broadband" connections as those of 2 Mbps or more, and "high broadband" as 5 Mbps or over, while link-ups at 20 Mbps and better were categorized as "extremely high speed connectivity."
In South Korea, 74 percent of connections were "high broadband," the world's top rate, while the figure was 60 percent in Japan, followed by Hong Kong with 46 percent, said the report.
The United States came twelfth, with just 24 percent of its connections at 5 Mbps or more. Worldwide, the high broadband percentage was 19 percent.
Growing demand for online high-definition video content is driving demand for faster connections, said Akamai's 'State of the Internet' report for the third quarter of 2009.
"As the quantity of HD-quality media increases over time and the consumption of that media increases, end users are likely to require ever-increasing amounts of bandwidth," the report said. - Agence France-Presse/INQUIRER.net
South Korea boasts the world's highest average connection speed at 14.6 Megabytes per second (Mbps) and also has six of Asia's ten cities with the fastest link-ups, all with average speeds above 15 Mbps.
Japan had the second highest average connection speed of 7.9 Mbps, followed by the Chinese territory of Hong Kong with 7.6 Mbps, said the report by US-based network provider Akamai Technologies.
The other countries in the top ten are Romania, followed by Sweden, Ireland, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Denmark and the Czech Republic, with the United States at 18th place, with an average speed of 3.9 Mbps.
The survey classifies "broadband" connections as those of 2 Mbps or more, and "high broadband" as 5 Mbps or over, while link-ups at 20 Mbps and better were categorized as "extremely high speed connectivity."
In South Korea, 74 percent of connections were "high broadband," the world's top rate, while the figure was 60 percent in Japan, followed by Hong Kong with 46 percent, said the report.
The United States came twelfth, with just 24 percent of its connections at 5 Mbps or more. Worldwide, the high broadband percentage was 19 percent.
Growing demand for online high-definition video content is driving demand for faster connections, said Akamai's 'State of the Internet' report for the third quarter of 2009.
"As the quantity of HD-quality media increases over time and the consumption of that media increases, end users are likely to require ever-increasing amounts of bandwidth," the report said. - Agence France-Presse/INQUIRER.net
Migrant worker wins essay writing contest on Rizal in Korea
May 27, 2010: MANILA, Philippines – Philippine Ambassador to Seoul Luis T. Cruz announced Thursday the winners of the embassy-sponsored essay writing contest held from February to April as part of activities to commemorate the 149th birth anniversary of national hero, Dr. Jose Rizal, on June 19.
Christian Romero, an employee of the Samsung Corporate Research and Development Institute, topped Category B, which focused on the theme “Finding Jose Rizal in South Korea: A Migrant’s Perspective.”
The category, one of two, was open to all migrant Filipinos in South Korea, including students, workers and spouses of Korean nationals.
In his essay, Romero wrote how it could have been like for Rizal as a migrant Filipino during his time and compared the hero’s experiences with the present situation of OFWs.
“[Today,] access to emigration is seen by many as the only viable way out of poverty... While most of us found financial liberty abroad, Rizal found intellectual freedom and enlightenment,” Romero wrote, asserting that “from [Rizal’s] time until today, poverty is still an enemy that enslaves our nation.”
Romero emphasized that Rizal, too, found difficulties as a migrant. “Just like the migrants I knew from the international migrant center in my small Filipino community, Rizal had his own false expectations and was also likely a victim of circumstances,” he said.
Romero, a native of Pangasinan, has been living in South Korea for three years. He learned of the contest while gathering information about the Overseas Absentee Voting from the embassy’s website.
“With his experience as a migrant, Rizal found a door to vast opportunities,” said Romero, adding that Rizal dedicated himself to learning and eventually returned to the Philippines with maturity, fully armed to face challenges and defeat the enemy.
“If every Filipino will take rigid adhesion to Rizal’s own perspective as a migrant … perhaps we can be set free from the enemy,” he said.
Other winners were Alfonso Delgado (2nd place), who wrote, in Tagalog, a fictional letter by Rizal addressed to OFWs; and Vicente Angel Ybiernas and Mr. Inrico Orbe, who tied for third for their essays that identified attributes common between Rizal and migrant Filipinos, such as perseverance and a drive for excellence.
Category A was open to Korean nationals who were required to write about “The Philippines and the Korean War” in commemoration of the 60th Anniversary of the Korean War this year. The Philippines deployed more than 7,000 soldiers to help in the defense of South Korea from 1950 to 1955.
Kim Jae-ho, Mr. Lee San-ha, and Ms. Kyu Moon-na won first, second and third places, respectively.
Kim called for greater cooperation between the Philippines and South Korea, recalling the bond that had formed between the two countries over the years. He traced the development of ties from military collaboration in the past to a comprehensive partnership today that included robust trade and people-to-people exchange.
The top winners from both categories will each receive a Medal of Academic Excellence from the Office of the President, a roundtrip ticket to the Philippines and a cash prize, while the runners-up will receive a Certificate of Excellence from the Philippine Embassy in South Korea. The Awarding Ceremony will take place at the Seoul Global Center on June 19.
The essay-writing contest was conducted in partnership with the Philippine Daily Inquirer, the Resource Persons Group (an association of Filipino professors based in South Korea), the Seoul Global Center, Philippine Airlines and Cebu Pacific. - INQUIRER.net
Christian Romero, an employee of the Samsung Corporate Research and Development Institute, topped Category B, which focused on the theme “Finding Jose Rizal in South Korea: A Migrant’s Perspective.”
The category, one of two, was open to all migrant Filipinos in South Korea, including students, workers and spouses of Korean nationals.
In his essay, Romero wrote how it could have been like for Rizal as a migrant Filipino during his time and compared the hero’s experiences with the present situation of OFWs.
“[Today,] access to emigration is seen by many as the only viable way out of poverty... While most of us found financial liberty abroad, Rizal found intellectual freedom and enlightenment,” Romero wrote, asserting that “from [Rizal’s] time until today, poverty is still an enemy that enslaves our nation.”
Romero emphasized that Rizal, too, found difficulties as a migrant. “Just like the migrants I knew from the international migrant center in my small Filipino community, Rizal had his own false expectations and was also likely a victim of circumstances,” he said.
Romero, a native of Pangasinan, has been living in South Korea for three years. He learned of the contest while gathering information about the Overseas Absentee Voting from the embassy’s website.
“With his experience as a migrant, Rizal found a door to vast opportunities,” said Romero, adding that Rizal dedicated himself to learning and eventually returned to the Philippines with maturity, fully armed to face challenges and defeat the enemy.
“If every Filipino will take rigid adhesion to Rizal’s own perspective as a migrant … perhaps we can be set free from the enemy,” he said.
Other winners were Alfonso Delgado (2nd place), who wrote, in Tagalog, a fictional letter by Rizal addressed to OFWs; and Vicente Angel Ybiernas and Mr. Inrico Orbe, who tied for third for their essays that identified attributes common between Rizal and migrant Filipinos, such as perseverance and a drive for excellence.
Category A was open to Korean nationals who were required to write about “The Philippines and the Korean War” in commemoration of the 60th Anniversary of the Korean War this year. The Philippines deployed more than 7,000 soldiers to help in the defense of South Korea from 1950 to 1955.
Kim Jae-ho, Mr. Lee San-ha, and Ms. Kyu Moon-na won first, second and third places, respectively.
Kim called for greater cooperation between the Philippines and South Korea, recalling the bond that had formed between the two countries over the years. He traced the development of ties from military collaboration in the past to a comprehensive partnership today that included robust trade and people-to-people exchange.
The top winners from both categories will each receive a Medal of Academic Excellence from the Office of the President, a roundtrip ticket to the Philippines and a cash prize, while the runners-up will receive a Certificate of Excellence from the Philippine Embassy in South Korea. The Awarding Ceremony will take place at the Seoul Global Center on June 19.
The essay-writing contest was conducted in partnership with the Philippine Daily Inquirer, the Resource Persons Group (an association of Filipino professors based in South Korea), the Seoul Global Center, Philippine Airlines and Cebu Pacific. - INQUIRER.net
South Korea allows dual citizenship
May 02, 2010: MANILA, Philippines—The South Korean National Assembly has allowed dual citizenship after it passed revisions on the country’s immigration law, the Department of Foreign Affairs said in a news release.
Citing the report of the Philippine embassy in Seoul, the DFA said the new law, which is aimed at preventing brain drain and at bringing in talented foreigners, sets the conditions for dual citizenship.
The following are thus allowed dual citizenship: foreigners with “exceptional talent,” foreigners married to South Koreans, Koreans adopted overseas as minors, Koreans who gained foreign nationality through marriage, overseas Koreans who are over 65 years old, and Koreans who gained dual citizenship at birth, if they apply for dual citizenship and take the oath of allegiance before turning 22 years old.
Previously, South Korea has allowed naturalization only for foreigners who lived there for five years or longer and those who married Korean nationals and have stayed in the country for over two years.
The new immigration law also allowed the collection of fingerprints and photos of foreigners arriving in the country to bolster security against terrorism.
This law would apply to foreigners 17 years old or older, except for officials of foreign governments and international organizations, as well as others exempted under a presidential decree. - INQUIRER.net
Citing the report of the Philippine embassy in Seoul, the DFA said the new law, which is aimed at preventing brain drain and at bringing in talented foreigners, sets the conditions for dual citizenship.
The following are thus allowed dual citizenship: foreigners with “exceptional talent,” foreigners married to South Koreans, Koreans adopted overseas as minors, Koreans who gained foreign nationality through marriage, overseas Koreans who are over 65 years old, and Koreans who gained dual citizenship at birth, if they apply for dual citizenship and take the oath of allegiance before turning 22 years old.
Previously, South Korea has allowed naturalization only for foreigners who lived there for five years or longer and those who married Korean nationals and have stayed in the country for over two years.
The new immigration law also allowed the collection of fingerprints and photos of foreigners arriving in the country to bolster security against terrorism.
This law would apply to foreigners 17 years old or older, except for officials of foreign governments and international organizations, as well as others exempted under a presidential decree. - INQUIRER.net
Need for inter-cultural education in South Korea
March 26, 2008: South Korean President Lee Myung Bak’s initiative to curb abuses experienced by foreign wives of Koreans, particularly those from China, the Philippines and Vietnam, is highly commendable, especially in March, women’s month.
But these wives are not the only victims of abuse by some Koreans. Foreign workers are also experiencing maltreatment from some Korean employers. Compulsory study by Koreans of another culture, whether for inter-racial marriage or employment, is important.
Statistics show that misunderstanding between Korean employers and foreign workers is basically cultural. These foreign workers experience culture shock from misunderstandings due to difficulty with the Korean language. As South Korea welcomes the whole world, it also creates a negative image in the foreign community.
Last February the South Korean Ministry of Labor announced its plan to bring in 132,000 foreign workers to supply the workforce for small and medium-scale industries in the country. But studies show that as the number of foreign workers increases, so do work-related problems.
The foreign community is asking for regular monitoring of the working conditions of foreign workers. There are reports of their predicaments and struggles in their work conditions. Problems usually occur when a foreign worker loses a job and it takes time to find a new one, especially for female workers. Foreign workers and NGOs are requesting for shelter houses for distressed workers under the government-to-government Employment Permit System.
All foreign workers need protection from both the country of origin and South Korea as both sides benefit from foreign workers.
There must also be intensive culture study programs to educate both employers and workers, along with foreign wives and Korean husbands. - Elizer Peñaranda (elizer_penaranda05@yahoo.com), INQUIRER.net
But these wives are not the only victims of abuse by some Koreans. Foreign workers are also experiencing maltreatment from some Korean employers. Compulsory study by Koreans of another culture, whether for inter-racial marriage or employment, is important.
Statistics show that misunderstanding between Korean employers and foreign workers is basically cultural. These foreign workers experience culture shock from misunderstandings due to difficulty with the Korean language. As South Korea welcomes the whole world, it also creates a negative image in the foreign community.
Last February the South Korean Ministry of Labor announced its plan to bring in 132,000 foreign workers to supply the workforce for small and medium-scale industries in the country. But studies show that as the number of foreign workers increases, so do work-related problems.
The foreign community is asking for regular monitoring of the working conditions of foreign workers. There are reports of their predicaments and struggles in their work conditions. Problems usually occur when a foreign worker loses a job and it takes time to find a new one, especially for female workers. Foreign workers and NGOs are requesting for shelter houses for distressed workers under the government-to-government Employment Permit System.
All foreign workers need protection from both the country of origin and South Korea as both sides benefit from foreign workers.
There must also be intensive culture study programs to educate both employers and workers, along with foreign wives and Korean husbands. - Elizer Peñaranda (elizer_penaranda05@yahoo.com), INQUIRER.net
20,000 Filipino workers eyed for South Korea
September 24, 2009: LEGAZPI CITY, Philippines - Some 20,000 Filipinos are needed to work at the newly established Integrated Free Export Zone (IFEZ) Incheon, South Korea, according to presidential economic adviser and Albay governor Joey Salceda.
Salceda said a memorandum of agreement with the Ifez was being finalized to formally implement the hiring of 20,000 workers from the Philippines, especially from Albay province.
Salceda was recently installed as economic adviser of the South Korea Incheon Metropolitan Authority, which is implementing the US$178-billion Ifez project.
Incheon is a highly industrial metropolitan area in South Korea.
“The export zone is the biggest integrated development project whose cost is 35 times the annual infrastructure budget in the Philippines,” Salceda said.
His investiture as adviser of the South Korean authority was held a week ago at Incheon where the ceremony was witnessed by the mayors of Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Honolulu, Brisbane and Beijing.
Witnesses also included Manila Mayor Alfredo Lim and representatives from 150 major cities in the Asia Pacific.
Salceda was accompanied by four Philippine governors and 14 of the 18 Albay mayors led by Polangui town Mayor Jesus Salceda, the province's League of Municipalities president and father of the governor.
The Philippines sent the biggest delegation, he added.
Salceda said that his economic advice had been frequently sought by Incheon Mayor Sang Soo who, he said, is widely expected to become president of South Korea.
Also in Incheon, the Asia Pacific Cities Summit organizers and participants hailed Albay during its plenary session for having the most unique and creative strategies for development, citing its program on climate change and disaster risk reduction.
The summit moderator specifically highlighted the institutionalization of the Albay Public Safety Emergency Management Office and the Center for Initiatives for Researches in Climate Adaptation. - Rey M. Nasol
Salceda said a memorandum of agreement with the Ifez was being finalized to formally implement the hiring of 20,000 workers from the Philippines, especially from Albay province.
Salceda was recently installed as economic adviser of the South Korea Incheon Metropolitan Authority, which is implementing the US$178-billion Ifez project.
Incheon is a highly industrial metropolitan area in South Korea.
“The export zone is the biggest integrated development project whose cost is 35 times the annual infrastructure budget in the Philippines,” Salceda said.
His investiture as adviser of the South Korean authority was held a week ago at Incheon where the ceremony was witnessed by the mayors of Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Honolulu, Brisbane and Beijing.
Witnesses also included Manila Mayor Alfredo Lim and representatives from 150 major cities in the Asia Pacific.
Salceda was accompanied by four Philippine governors and 14 of the 18 Albay mayors led by Polangui town Mayor Jesus Salceda, the province's League of Municipalities president and father of the governor.
The Philippines sent the biggest delegation, he added.
Salceda said that his economic advice had been frequently sought by Incheon Mayor Sang Soo who, he said, is widely expected to become president of South Korea.
Also in Incheon, the Asia Pacific Cities Summit organizers and participants hailed Albay during its plenary session for having the most unique and creative strategies for development, citing its program on climate change and disaster risk reduction.
The summit moderator specifically highlighted the institutionalization of the Albay Public Safety Emergency Management Office and the Center for Initiatives for Researches in Climate Adaptation. - Rey M. Nasol
Philippine Daily Inquirer
Over fake AIDS tests certificates: South Korea deports 57 Filipino entertainers
January 11, 2010: MANILA, Philippines—South Korea deported 57 Filipino entertainers over fake AIDS tests certificates required by both countries prior to deployment of migrant workers, the Department of Labor and Employment said Monday.
This prompted Labor Secretary Marianito Roque to order an investigation of the recruitment agency that issued the fake certificates. He said the agency will be sanctioned if found violating Republic Act 8042 or the Migrant Workers and Overseas Filipinos Act of 1995.
He emphasized that to protect OFWs in both the sending and host countries, a strict AIDS test should be made a crucial part of the medical examination required by the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration on overseas-bound migrant workers.
“We strongly urge the recruiters to adhere to the stringent requirement and ensure that the credentials and required certificates of OFWs (overseas Filipino workers) are in accordance with the international standards,” Roque said.
In 2009, Roque said that of the 57 OPAs, 11 were deported on December 7, 18 on December 4, and 28 from July 12 to 16.
One of the deportees, whose identity the department withholds for privacy reasons, said that her agency in the Philippines prepared and submitted all the required documents, including the AIDS test certificates. She added that she, as well as her fellow entertainers, did not undergo a test in the country because the agency and promoter told them that the AIDS test will be conducted in Korea.
Meanwhile, the Philippine Overseas Labor Office in Seoul is in the process of inviting the promoter in Korea to shed light on the incident.
Philippine labor attaché to Seoul Delmer Cruz also recommended that reintegration assistance be extended to the deported entertainers “in consideration of their disadvantaged status” through the department’s National Reintegration Center for OFWs and Overseas Workers Welfare Administration. - INQUIRER.net
This prompted Labor Secretary Marianito Roque to order an investigation of the recruitment agency that issued the fake certificates. He said the agency will be sanctioned if found violating Republic Act 8042 or the Migrant Workers and Overseas Filipinos Act of 1995.
He emphasized that to protect OFWs in both the sending and host countries, a strict AIDS test should be made a crucial part of the medical examination required by the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration on overseas-bound migrant workers.
“We strongly urge the recruiters to adhere to the stringent requirement and ensure that the credentials and required certificates of OFWs (overseas Filipino workers) are in accordance with the international standards,” Roque said.
In 2009, Roque said that of the 57 OPAs, 11 were deported on December 7, 18 on December 4, and 28 from July 12 to 16.
One of the deportees, whose identity the department withholds for privacy reasons, said that her agency in the Philippines prepared and submitted all the required documents, including the AIDS test certificates. She added that she, as well as her fellow entertainers, did not undergo a test in the country because the agency and promoter told them that the AIDS test will be conducted in Korea.
Meanwhile, the Philippine Overseas Labor Office in Seoul is in the process of inviting the promoter in Korea to shed light on the incident.
Philippine labor attaché to Seoul Delmer Cruz also recommended that reintegration assistance be extended to the deported entertainers “in consideration of their disadvantaged status” through the department’s National Reintegration Center for OFWs and Overseas Workers Welfare Administration. - INQUIRER.net
Saturday, November 20, 2010
Brokers of migrant workers in Taiwan protest to secure profits
March 10, 2008 - On Jan 28, protesters gathered round the CLA (Council of Labor Affairs); instead of angry unemployed laborers, they were brokers who have made bucks by "importing" migrant labors into Taiwan, protesting for their tarnished business by the "direct employment" policy implemented by the CLA.
"Direct employment" is a policy that labor NGOs have demanded for years. Taiwan has been using migrant workers for 18 years, for as long its society somehow has held discrimination against them, regarding them as highly replaceable workforces. Foreign labor policy is one of the major exploiters of the migrant workers.
Wu Jing-Ru (吳靜如), Secretary General of TIWA (Taiwan International Workers Association,台灣國際勞工協會) pointed out five major problems in Taiwan's foreign labor policy, including the limit imposed on working duration, the broker system, the inapplicability of Labor Standards Law (勞基法) on migrant workers, deprivation of rights to form labor unions and choose their employers. Wu said the discriminating policies have justified the exploitation of migrant workers, and the NGOs have
to unite and ask for changes in the policy.
In 2005, migrant workers for Kaohsiung's MRT system rioted against slavery, which case exposed the inadequacy of migrant labor policies. However, the case only resulted in political quarrels, bringing hardly any change on policies.
Brokers, of course, become the beneficiaries. Before 2001, the commission of introducing migrant workers depended solely on demand and supply, when brokers knew how desperate southeastern Asians were to go to richer countries to make a living, therefore demanding a sky-high commission. In most cases, during the three years the migrant worker is allowed to stay in Taiwan, they spent their first two years working to pay off the commission. Because the workers in debt have no
freedom to choose their employers, they either put up with unfair treatment, or become "runaway workers," who often take the blame for rising criminal activities.
On November 9, 2001, under the pressure of labor NGOs, the CLA finally announced a regulation, prohibiting the brokers from getting "commission;" instead, they can only ask for "service charges," which is no more than $1800 NT per month during the first year, $1700 per month during the second year, and $1500 during the third.
However, Taiwanese brokers have teamed up with brokers in the workers' home countries, cheating the migrant labors into signing an enormous loan contract, so the brokers on both sides can share the commission in the dark.
Though the CLA knows about it, there is nothing they can do. For one thing, the broker system enables the officials and employers to easily manage and control the workers. The government wants to get cheap labor on one hand, but doesn't want the migrant labors to establish their own job seeking networks on the other hand. For another thing, the brokers are connected to huge amount of interests, like the broker company for Kaohsiung MRT who hooked up with the secretary of presidential office.
Through years of fighting, the CLA finally got their hands on the ''direct employment'' policy suggested by the labor NGOs. Currently it is applicable only on employers who have already hired household helpers and have demand for re-employment after a three-year contract, and the CLA has said the policy would be extended to first-time migrant workers and factory workers later only if the first stage goes well. However, since the brokers' interests have been tarnished, they gathered on Jan 28, 2008 to protest by the CLA.
Mr. Ou, former chairperson of Taipei Employment Service Institute Association (台北市就業服務公會) said the protest of the brokers was not targeted toward the direct employment policy, because all the other countries are adopting both broker system and direct employment.
According to Ou, the brokers are angered because the procedures required in direct employment are much simpler than the brokers, who are asked to provide more documents. The brokers are protesting against the government's intention to take profits away from the people who make a living as brokers.
But, Wu Jing-Ru thinks that service offered by the government should of course be better. What's more, the employment procedures of blue-collar labors are still much more complicated than those of white-collar ones, which Wu considers to be class discrimination.
Meanwhile, this is why brokers manage to find profits from the complexity of the procedures.
That is to say, though the employment of some of the migrant workers have been made easier, the brokers can still play around with the regulations; some of them are already trying to convince the employers that direct employment still incorporates many procedures, which they can help simplify with extra charges, and the migrant workers will still be the victims.
Wu also thinks that, apart from the realization of direct employment, there are still many things the CLA should do. Not until the CLA examines its migrant worker policies as a whole regardless of pressure from the brokers, the situation of labors will never be better off. - http://www.newscham.net
* People's Media Chamsaesang starts exchanges with Coolloud, a progressive media in Taiwan. You can visit coolloud at http://www.coolloud.org.tw
"Direct employment" is a policy that labor NGOs have demanded for years. Taiwan has been using migrant workers for 18 years, for as long its society somehow has held discrimination against them, regarding them as highly replaceable workforces. Foreign labor policy is one of the major exploiters of the migrant workers.
Wu Jing-Ru (吳靜如), Secretary General of TIWA (Taiwan International Workers Association,台灣國際勞工協會) pointed out five major problems in Taiwan's foreign labor policy, including the limit imposed on working duration, the broker system, the inapplicability of Labor Standards Law (勞基法) on migrant workers, deprivation of rights to form labor unions and choose their employers. Wu said the discriminating policies have justified the exploitation of migrant workers, and the NGOs have
to unite and ask for changes in the policy.
In 2005, migrant workers for Kaohsiung's MRT system rioted against slavery, which case exposed the inadequacy of migrant labor policies. However, the case only resulted in political quarrels, bringing hardly any change on policies.
Brokers, of course, become the beneficiaries. Before 2001, the commission of introducing migrant workers depended solely on demand and supply, when brokers knew how desperate southeastern Asians were to go to richer countries to make a living, therefore demanding a sky-high commission. In most cases, during the three years the migrant worker is allowed to stay in Taiwan, they spent their first two years working to pay off the commission. Because the workers in debt have no
freedom to choose their employers, they either put up with unfair treatment, or become "runaway workers," who often take the blame for rising criminal activities.
On November 9, 2001, under the pressure of labor NGOs, the CLA finally announced a regulation, prohibiting the brokers from getting "commission;" instead, they can only ask for "service charges," which is no more than $1800 NT per month during the first year, $1700 per month during the second year, and $1500 during the third.
However, Taiwanese brokers have teamed up with brokers in the workers' home countries, cheating the migrant labors into signing an enormous loan contract, so the brokers on both sides can share the commission in the dark.
Though the CLA knows about it, there is nothing they can do. For one thing, the broker system enables the officials and employers to easily manage and control the workers. The government wants to get cheap labor on one hand, but doesn't want the migrant labors to establish their own job seeking networks on the other hand. For another thing, the brokers are connected to huge amount of interests, like the broker company for Kaohsiung MRT who hooked up with the secretary of presidential office.
Through years of fighting, the CLA finally got their hands on the ''direct employment'' policy suggested by the labor NGOs. Currently it is applicable only on employers who have already hired household helpers and have demand for re-employment after a three-year contract, and the CLA has said the policy would be extended to first-time migrant workers and factory workers later only if the first stage goes well. However, since the brokers' interests have been tarnished, they gathered on Jan 28, 2008 to protest by the CLA.
Mr. Ou, former chairperson of Taipei Employment Service Institute Association (台北市就業服務公會) said the protest of the brokers was not targeted toward the direct employment policy, because all the other countries are adopting both broker system and direct employment.
According to Ou, the brokers are angered because the procedures required in direct employment are much simpler than the brokers, who are asked to provide more documents. The brokers are protesting against the government's intention to take profits away from the people who make a living as brokers.
But, Wu Jing-Ru thinks that service offered by the government should of course be better. What's more, the employment procedures of blue-collar labors are still much more complicated than those of white-collar ones, which Wu considers to be class discrimination.
Meanwhile, this is why brokers manage to find profits from the complexity of the procedures.
That is to say, though the employment of some of the migrant workers have been made easier, the brokers can still play around with the regulations; some of them are already trying to convince the employers that direct employment still incorporates many procedures, which they can help simplify with extra charges, and the migrant workers will still be the victims.
Wu also thinks that, apart from the realization of direct employment, there are still many things the CLA should do. Not until the CLA examines its migrant worker policies as a whole regardless of pressure from the brokers, the situation of labors will never be better off. - http://www.newscham.net
* People's Media Chamsaesang starts exchanges with Coolloud, a progressive media in Taiwan. You can visit coolloud at http://www.coolloud.org.tw
Tuesday, November 16, 2010
30,000 jobs await Pinoy workers in Taiwan
May 03, 2010 -- MANILA, Philippines - At least 30,000 jobs still await Filipino workers in Taiwan, local recruiters reported yesterday.
Jackson Gan, Pilipino Manpower Association of Taiwan Inc. (PILMAT) president, said factories in Taiwan are still in dire need of Filipinos and other foreign workers.
“Companies in Taiwan continue to hire workers and we have thousands of job orders that are yet to be filled up until this time,” Gan said.
He said Taiwan has bounced back from last year’s financial crisis and is hiring more workers than in past years.
However, Gan said local recruiters are having difficulty recruiting skilled workers to fill up the vacancies because of the National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA) secretary-general’s warning that the forging of an economic cooperation agreement between Taiwan and China would adversely affect the employment of OFWs.
Gan stressed that NEDA’s fear is baseless since Taiwanese employers still prefer Filipinos compared to other workers from other countries.
He said Taiwan hires an average of 40,000 Filipino workers, including factory workers and caregivers annually.
“Although Taiwan companies hire Vietnamese and Indonesians, OFWs still have the advantage because they can speak the English language unlike other nationalities,” he said.
Gan emphasized that Taiwanese electronics manufacturing companies are not warm to the idea of hiring Chinese mainlanders.
“NEDA is sounding an alarm without basis that could jeopardize the country’s economic stability. Its warning that thousands of OFWs may lose jobs is far-fetched,” he stressed.
While the investment climate in China is now more liberal, Gan said there is little indication that the electronic manufacturing sector will transfer to China due to national security concerns.
He said the electronics sector is not among the 99 industries and business lines that Taiwan would like to liberalize. - Mayen Jaymalin (The Philippine Star)
Jackson Gan, Pilipino Manpower Association of Taiwan Inc. (PILMAT) president, said factories in Taiwan are still in dire need of Filipinos and other foreign workers.
“Companies in Taiwan continue to hire workers and we have thousands of job orders that are yet to be filled up until this time,” Gan said.
He said Taiwan has bounced back from last year’s financial crisis and is hiring more workers than in past years.
However, Gan said local recruiters are having difficulty recruiting skilled workers to fill up the vacancies because of the National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA) secretary-general’s warning that the forging of an economic cooperation agreement between Taiwan and China would adversely affect the employment of OFWs.
Gan stressed that NEDA’s fear is baseless since Taiwanese employers still prefer Filipinos compared to other workers from other countries.
He said Taiwan hires an average of 40,000 Filipino workers, including factory workers and caregivers annually.
“Although Taiwan companies hire Vietnamese and Indonesians, OFWs still have the advantage because they can speak the English language unlike other nationalities,” he said.
Gan emphasized that Taiwanese electronics manufacturing companies are not warm to the idea of hiring Chinese mainlanders.
“NEDA is sounding an alarm without basis that could jeopardize the country’s economic stability. Its warning that thousands of OFWs may lose jobs is far-fetched,” he stressed.
While the investment climate in China is now more liberal, Gan said there is little indication that the electronic manufacturing sector will transfer to China due to national security concerns.
He said the electronics sector is not among the 99 industries and business lines that Taiwan would like to liberalize. - Mayen Jaymalin (The Philippine Star)
Taiwan’s caregivers and domestic workers need a day off
March 12, 2010 -- For the occasion of Women’s Day, Caritas Taiwan participated in the rally organized by Migrant Empowerment Network in Taiwan in front of Executive Yuan on March 5, 2010. The NGOs have been lobbying the concerns of domestic workers and caregivers who are mostly women, to be included in the Labor Standards Law.
In the situation of Taiwan, caregivers who are also considered as domestic workers are working for as much as 12.5 hours a day and they neither received overtime pay nor avail of one day off per week because employers do not allow them. Thus, they are vulnerable to stress and some recourse to running-away from their employers and become irregular or undocumented.
For several years, the NGOs that are serving migrant workers have been lobbying for the revision of the Household Service Act which governs the domestic workers.
The basic needs of the workers should not be denied nor regarded as merely public responsibility. It should be included in the Labor Standards Law to protect the rights of the migrant workers.
According to the statistics of the Bureau of Employment and Vocation Training, Taiwan has a total number of 353,805 migrant workers as of January 2010, with Indonesians as the largest in number followed by Vietnamese, Filipinos and Thai.
For several years now, Justice and Peace and Caritas Taiwan has been serving Filipino, Indonesian, and Thai migrant workers. - Caritas Taiwan
In the situation of Taiwan, caregivers who are also considered as domestic workers are working for as much as 12.5 hours a day and they neither received overtime pay nor avail of one day off per week because employers do not allow them. Thus, they are vulnerable to stress and some recourse to running-away from their employers and become irregular or undocumented.
For several years, the NGOs that are serving migrant workers have been lobbying for the revision of the Household Service Act which governs the domestic workers.
The basic needs of the workers should not be denied nor regarded as merely public responsibility. It should be included in the Labor Standards Law to protect the rights of the migrant workers.
According to the statistics of the Bureau of Employment and Vocation Training, Taiwan has a total number of 353,805 migrant workers as of January 2010, with Indonesians as the largest in number followed by Vietnamese, Filipinos and Thai.
For several years now, Justice and Peace and Caritas Taiwan has been serving Filipino, Indonesian, and Thai migrant workers. - Caritas Taiwan
Monday, November 15, 2010
OFW families may now collect suicide insurance
November 14, 2010 - Families of overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) who commit suicide are now entitled to insurance benefits, insurance companies said this weekend.
The provision for suicides has been included in the compulsory insurance policy recently implemented by the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA) in line with Republic Act 10022, which requires all recruitment agencies to provide workers with insurance coverage from government-accredited insurers.
Eduardo Atayde, president of the Passenger Accident Management and Insurance Agency Inc. (PAMI), pointed out that “most health insurance companies will not cover injuries that are self-inflicted, including suicide."
PAMI’s coverage will now include suicide victims, even in cases when “someone survives a suicide attempt but sustains injuries that are permanent or that require long-term care… They are also entitled to benefits like hospital bills, rehabilitation costs, doctor’s bills, home care attendants and all other potential medical necessities," Atayde said.
Suicide insurance is added to other items already included in the comprehensive coverage required for each OFW by RA 10022: $15,000 in case of accidental death, $10,000 in case of natural death, and $7,500 in case of permanent disablement along with repatriation costs, subsistence allowance benefit, money claims arising from the employer’s liability, compassionate visit, medical evacuation, and medical repatriation.
Other companies licensed and certified by the Insurance Commission (IC), such as the Philippine Charter Insurance Corp. of Metro Bank Group and United Cocolife Assurance Corp., said they are ready to provide OFWs with the maximum insurance protection the industry could offer, adding that they could facilitate the issuance of insurance policies even for those residing in the provinces.
However, the POEA’s mandatory insurance policy has come under fire after some 100 employers in Hong Kong reportedly suspended the hiring of Filipino domestic helpers. The employers said the new policy is unfair as Hong Kong labor laws already require them to secure insurance coverage for foreign workers.
Other groups have argued that OFWs will eventually end up shouldering the insurance cost as there are no regulations that bind employers to honor the Philippine government's policies on payment of OFWs' placement, recruitment, and other fees. (See: Recruiter: OFWs will end up paying for ‘no cost’ insurance premium.)
POEA argued that it has no choice but to implement the mandatory insurance policy for OFWs because it is the law with the passage of RA 10022.
“The POEA is now under obligation to implement the provision on mandatory insurance cover for agency-hired OFWs… Being guided by the mandate of law, I believe POEA does not have the authority or discretion to deviate from it," said POEA administrator Jennifer Jardin-Manalili in a statement. — With Larissa Mae Suarez/VS, GMANews.TV
The provision for suicides has been included in the compulsory insurance policy recently implemented by the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA) in line with Republic Act 10022, which requires all recruitment agencies to provide workers with insurance coverage from government-accredited insurers.
Eduardo Atayde, president of the Passenger Accident Management and Insurance Agency Inc. (PAMI), pointed out that “most health insurance companies will not cover injuries that are self-inflicted, including suicide."
PAMI’s coverage will now include suicide victims, even in cases when “someone survives a suicide attempt but sustains injuries that are permanent or that require long-term care… They are also entitled to benefits like hospital bills, rehabilitation costs, doctor’s bills, home care attendants and all other potential medical necessities," Atayde said.
Suicide insurance is added to other items already included in the comprehensive coverage required for each OFW by RA 10022: $15,000 in case of accidental death, $10,000 in case of natural death, and $7,500 in case of permanent disablement along with repatriation costs, subsistence allowance benefit, money claims arising from the employer’s liability, compassionate visit, medical evacuation, and medical repatriation.
Other companies licensed and certified by the Insurance Commission (IC), such as the Philippine Charter Insurance Corp. of Metro Bank Group and United Cocolife Assurance Corp., said they are ready to provide OFWs with the maximum insurance protection the industry could offer, adding that they could facilitate the issuance of insurance policies even for those residing in the provinces.
However, the POEA’s mandatory insurance policy has come under fire after some 100 employers in Hong Kong reportedly suspended the hiring of Filipino domestic helpers. The employers said the new policy is unfair as Hong Kong labor laws already require them to secure insurance coverage for foreign workers.
Other groups have argued that OFWs will eventually end up shouldering the insurance cost as there are no regulations that bind employers to honor the Philippine government's policies on payment of OFWs' placement, recruitment, and other fees. (See: Recruiter: OFWs will end up paying for ‘no cost’ insurance premium.)
POEA argued that it has no choice but to implement the mandatory insurance policy for OFWs because it is the law with the passage of RA 10022.
“The POEA is now under obligation to implement the provision on mandatory insurance cover for agency-hired OFWs… Being guided by the mandate of law, I believe POEA does not have the authority or discretion to deviate from it," said POEA administrator Jennifer Jardin-Manalili in a statement. — With Larissa Mae Suarez/VS, GMANews.TV
Sunday, November 14, 2010
Mandatory insurance imperils HK hiring of Pinoy helpers
11 Nov 2010 -- Hong Kong residents have reportedly canceled contracts for Filipino domestic workers, following the Philippine government’s implementation of a mandatory insurance coverage for these workers.
Employers, recruiters and workers themselves have scored the new policy, which took effect on Monday. They described the policy as unfair and redundant, as existing labor laws in Hong Kong already require employers to secure insurance policies for foreign domestic workers.
Reports by Hong Kong-based news sites The Standard and the South China Morning Post said a local organization claimed that over 100 residents have suspended hiring Filipino helpers due to the mandatory insurance.
The compulsory insurance coverage requires employers or recruiters to secure a two-year policy coverage for overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) amounting to a fixed rate of US$144, on top of the premiums. (See: DOLE warns recruiters vs passing on insurance costs to OFWs)
The policy includes benefits of $15,000 in case of accidental death; $10,000 in case of natural death; and $7,500 in case of permanent disablement, including repatriation costs, subsistence allowance benefit, money claims, compassionate visit, medical evacuation and medical repatriation.
A certificate of cover provided by an insurance company that is licensed and certified by the Insurance Commission is now required before the issuance of overseas employment certificate or exit clearance of agency-hired overseas workers.
A recent advisory from the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA) said the accredited insurance providers are Paramount Life and General Insurance Corp., Philippine Charter Insurance Corp., and United Coconut Planters’ Life Assurance Corp.
HK laws already require insurance for foreign workers
The report by The Standard, however, said employers and recruiters are not happy as some 280,000 households shell out about HK$900 every two years for foreign domestic workers’ insurance as mandated by the region’s laws.
“(Foreign domestic workers) are adequately protected by the insurance policies that employers have bought on behalf of their workers," said Joseph Law, chairman of the Hong Kong Employers of Overseas Domestic Helpers Association as quoted in the report.
He added that many employers have voluntarily purchased comprehensive insurance of about HK$800 to HK$1,000 a year for their workers’ medical expenses, on top of the compulsory insurance.
Hong Kong’s Liberal Party on Tuesday staged a rally before the Philippine Consulate General there to protest the new policy and to call on the Hong Kong government to negotiate with Philippine authorities to revoke the “unnecessary" law.
A separate report by the South China Morning Post (SCMP) likewise also said a recruitment agency has temporarily stopped processing new workers until questions about the new policy are clarified.
"We have stopped letting new workers come to Hong Kong. The halt will continue until we know the specifics of the new policy," said Technic Employment Service Centre managing director Teresa Liu Tsui-lan as quoted in the report.
HK workers also oppose new policy
In light of this, a Hong Kong-based Filipino workers’ organization has expressed concerns that the mandatory insurance will result in job loss or additional fees for migrant workers, and has called on the Philippine government to exempt them from the new policy.
“We don’t feel protected. We are actually anxious that this new policy for mandatory insurance will create job loss or possible additional financial burden to us Filipino migrants in Hong Kong. For OFWs in HK, this new insurance is thrice redundant and an exemption should be made for us," said Eman Villanueva, secretary general of the United Filipino in Hong Kong (Unifil-Migrante-HK), in a statement.
Villanueva said OFWs were not consulted prior to the implementation of the new policy, adding that employers and agencies may eventually pass on to OFWs the burden of paying for the insurance coverage.
The POEA earlier issued a reminder that licensed recruitment and manning agencies or foreign employers should bear the cost of the insurance coverage of workers.
Villanueva, however, said: “There are many fees that are supposed to be paid for by employers but are in reality carried by OFWs such as the contract authentication fee and the OWWA fee. There is no existing concrete mechanism to ensure that these fees are not passed on to OFWs."
He cited the placement fee that is supposedly illegal but is still being charged by recruitment agencies through various modus operandi. He claimed that both the POEA and the Labor department have been unable to stop this illegal practice.
“This new rule should be reviewed. Genuine protection should not cost us our jobs or more fees for us," Villanueva said.
The Labor department’s communications head Nicon Fameronag meanwhile maintained in the SCMP report that the insurance is intended to protect OFWs.
"This is not a levy but a new law that gives added protection for Filipino overseas workers," Fameronag said as quoted in the report.
The guidelines for the new policy were published in Hong Kong newspapers on September 17, he added.
POEA administrator Jennifer Manalili could not be reached for comment as of posting time.
Records from the POEA show that Hong Kong, a special administrative region of China, was the third top destination of OFWs in 2009, with 100,142 Filipino workers deployed there last year. Of this figure, about 25,000 are domestic helpers.
Currently, there are about 140,000 Filipino domestic helpers in the region. It is also among the top countries in terms of OFW remittances, which amounted to over US$339 million in 2009.— JERRIE M. ABELLA, GMANews.TV
Employers, recruiters and workers themselves have scored the new policy, which took effect on Monday. They described the policy as unfair and redundant, as existing labor laws in Hong Kong already require employers to secure insurance policies for foreign domestic workers.
Reports by Hong Kong-based news sites The Standard and the South China Morning Post said a local organization claimed that over 100 residents have suspended hiring Filipino helpers due to the mandatory insurance.
The compulsory insurance coverage requires employers or recruiters to secure a two-year policy coverage for overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) amounting to a fixed rate of US$144, on top of the premiums. (See: DOLE warns recruiters vs passing on insurance costs to OFWs)
The policy includes benefits of $15,000 in case of accidental death; $10,000 in case of natural death; and $7,500 in case of permanent disablement, including repatriation costs, subsistence allowance benefit, money claims, compassionate visit, medical evacuation and medical repatriation.
A certificate of cover provided by an insurance company that is licensed and certified by the Insurance Commission is now required before the issuance of overseas employment certificate or exit clearance of agency-hired overseas workers.
A recent advisory from the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA) said the accredited insurance providers are Paramount Life and General Insurance Corp., Philippine Charter Insurance Corp., and United Coconut Planters’ Life Assurance Corp.
HK laws already require insurance for foreign workers
The report by The Standard, however, said employers and recruiters are not happy as some 280,000 households shell out about HK$900 every two years for foreign domestic workers’ insurance as mandated by the region’s laws.
“(Foreign domestic workers) are adequately protected by the insurance policies that employers have bought on behalf of their workers," said Joseph Law, chairman of the Hong Kong Employers of Overseas Domestic Helpers Association as quoted in the report.
He added that many employers have voluntarily purchased comprehensive insurance of about HK$800 to HK$1,000 a year for their workers’ medical expenses, on top of the compulsory insurance.
Hong Kong’s Liberal Party on Tuesday staged a rally before the Philippine Consulate General there to protest the new policy and to call on the Hong Kong government to negotiate with Philippine authorities to revoke the “unnecessary" law.
A separate report by the South China Morning Post (SCMP) likewise also said a recruitment agency has temporarily stopped processing new workers until questions about the new policy are clarified.
"We have stopped letting new workers come to Hong Kong. The halt will continue until we know the specifics of the new policy," said Technic Employment Service Centre managing director Teresa Liu Tsui-lan as quoted in the report.
HK workers also oppose new policy
In light of this, a Hong Kong-based Filipino workers’ organization has expressed concerns that the mandatory insurance will result in job loss or additional fees for migrant workers, and has called on the Philippine government to exempt them from the new policy.
“We don’t feel protected. We are actually anxious that this new policy for mandatory insurance will create job loss or possible additional financial burden to us Filipino migrants in Hong Kong. For OFWs in HK, this new insurance is thrice redundant and an exemption should be made for us," said Eman Villanueva, secretary general of the United Filipino in Hong Kong (Unifil-Migrante-HK), in a statement.
Villanueva said OFWs were not consulted prior to the implementation of the new policy, adding that employers and agencies may eventually pass on to OFWs the burden of paying for the insurance coverage.
The POEA earlier issued a reminder that licensed recruitment and manning agencies or foreign employers should bear the cost of the insurance coverage of workers.
Villanueva, however, said: “There are many fees that are supposed to be paid for by employers but are in reality carried by OFWs such as the contract authentication fee and the OWWA fee. There is no existing concrete mechanism to ensure that these fees are not passed on to OFWs."
He cited the placement fee that is supposedly illegal but is still being charged by recruitment agencies through various modus operandi. He claimed that both the POEA and the Labor department have been unable to stop this illegal practice.
“This new rule should be reviewed. Genuine protection should not cost us our jobs or more fees for us," Villanueva said.
The Labor department’s communications head Nicon Fameronag meanwhile maintained in the SCMP report that the insurance is intended to protect OFWs.
"This is not a levy but a new law that gives added protection for Filipino overseas workers," Fameronag said as quoted in the report.
The guidelines for the new policy were published in Hong Kong newspapers on September 17, he added.
POEA administrator Jennifer Manalili could not be reached for comment as of posting time.
Records from the POEA show that Hong Kong, a special administrative region of China, was the third top destination of OFWs in 2009, with 100,142 Filipino workers deployed there last year. Of this figure, about 25,000 are domestic helpers.
Currently, there are about 140,000 Filipino domestic helpers in the region. It is also among the top countries in terms of OFW remittances, which amounted to over US$339 million in 2009.— JERRIE M. ABELLA, GMANews.TV
DOLE warns recruiters vs passing on insurance costs to OFWs
20 Oct 2010 -- Labor officials sternly reminded recruitment firms Wednesday against passing on to prospective overseas Filipino workers the cost of their mandatory insurance coverage.
The Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) said the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA) is already monitoring potential violators.
"The insurance coverage shall be effective for the duration of the worker’s employment contract and shall at least cover the benefits provided for by the Omnibus Rules and Regulations Implementing Republic Act 8042 as amended by R.A. 10022," DOLE Secretary Rosalinda Baldoz said in an article posted on the DOLE website.
She added POEA under Administrator Jennifer Manalili has vowed to strictly monitor agencies trying to circumvent the law.
Under Republic Act 10022, licensed recruitment and manning agencies or foreign employers shall bear the cost of the insurance coverage of workers.
However, insurance coverage is optional for name hires, rehires (balik-manggagawa or vacationing workers) as well as workers hired through government-to-government arrangement.
These workers may request their foreign employers to pay the cost of insurance or they themselves may pay the premium.
Republic Act 10022 requires recruitment agencies to shoulder the following insurance costs:
The insurance coverage guidelines were signed on September 8 and published in a newspaper on September 17.
"Hence, the insurance policy has become a mandatory requirement for processing of OFW contracts and overseas employment certificates (OECs)," the DOLE said.
Baldoz said a certificate of cover (COC) provided by an insurance firm licensed and certified by the Insurance Commission (IC0), is now required before the issuance of OECs or exit clearance of agency-hired OFWs.
She said a certificate of entry or other proofs of insurance coverage from the manning agency shall be accepted for seafarers if the vessel is covered by protection and indemnity.
The coverage must also conform to POEA rules and regulations and the POEA Standard Terms and Conditions Governing the Overseas Employment of Filipino Seafarers on Board Ocean-Going Ships. – JERRIE ABELLA, GMANews.TV
The Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) said the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA) is already monitoring potential violators.
"The insurance coverage shall be effective for the duration of the worker’s employment contract and shall at least cover the benefits provided for by the Omnibus Rules and Regulations Implementing Republic Act 8042 as amended by R.A. 10022," DOLE Secretary Rosalinda Baldoz said in an article posted on the DOLE website.
She added POEA under Administrator Jennifer Manalili has vowed to strictly monitor agencies trying to circumvent the law.
Under Republic Act 10022, licensed recruitment and manning agencies or foreign employers shall bear the cost of the insurance coverage of workers.
However, insurance coverage is optional for name hires, rehires (balik-manggagawa or vacationing workers) as well as workers hired through government-to-government arrangement.
These workers may request their foreign employers to pay the cost of insurance or they themselves may pay the premium.
Republic Act 10022 requires recruitment agencies to shoulder the following insurance costs:
- the Overseas Workers Welfare Administration life insurance of P100,000 for natural death;
- P200,000 for accidental death;
- P100,000 for total permanent disability;
- P50,000 burial benefits;
- $15,000 in case of accidental death;
- $10,000 in case of natural death; and
- $7,500 in case of permanent disablement, including repatriation costs, subsistence allowance benefit, money claims, compassionate visit, medical evacuation and medical repatriation.
The insurance coverage guidelines were signed on September 8 and published in a newspaper on September 17.
"Hence, the insurance policy has become a mandatory requirement for processing of OFW contracts and overseas employment certificates (OECs)," the DOLE said.
Baldoz said a certificate of cover (COC) provided by an insurance firm licensed and certified by the Insurance Commission (IC0), is now required before the issuance of OECs or exit clearance of agency-hired OFWs.
She said a certificate of entry or other proofs of insurance coverage from the manning agency shall be accepted for seafarers if the vessel is covered by protection and indemnity.
The coverage must also conform to POEA rules and regulations and the POEA Standard Terms and Conditions Governing the Overseas Employment of Filipino Seafarers on Board Ocean-Going Ships. – JERRIE ABELLA, GMANews.TV
Recruiter: OFWs will end up paying for 'no cost' insurance premium
11 Nov 2010 -- Overseas Filipino workers bound for Asian countries such as Hong Kong, Taiwan, Brunei, South Korea, Malaysia and Singapore will eventually shoulder the compulsory insurance premium despite government warnings against passing on the cost to OFWs.
"OFWs will eventually pay for the insurance just as they, in reality, pay for the placement costs ranging P50-150,000 – including plane tickets, Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA) fees, Overseas Workers Welfare Administration Membership (OWWA) fee, visas, foreign brokers and local placement costs, among others," recruitment specialist and former OFW Lito Soriano said.
Soriano claimed that for over three decades, the practice is that OFWs in Asian countries shoulder all the expenses for their employment abroad, even if the Labor Department and related government agencies say otherwise.
"So, the US$72-100 per annum for the compulsory insurance mandated by the new Migrant Workers Act RA 10022, is just another cost on the shoulders of the OFW," he added.
He said, the Philippine Government must realize that policies regarding "zero" placement fees for various destinations abroad are not followed in Asian countries for the simple reason that 95 percent of employers in these countries, as well as their local recruitment brokers, are not regulated.
The policies the Philippine government has crafted would not be honored in most of these countries, he added.
Moreover, he said, the government has not initiated bilateral OFW protection agreements to require foreign employers in Asian countries to pay for the recruitment costs including the exorbitant foreign brokers fees that are usually the major component of the total placement cost.
Soriano lamented most OFWs and the general public are not aware of this reality in the recruitment process.
Compulsory insurance
The insurance premium must correspond to the length of the employment contract and must be paid – "at no cost to the worker" – prior to the release of their POEA overseas employment certificate. [See: Section 23 of RA 10022]
With most OFWs on two year contracts, the true upfront cost is between P6,500 to P8,800, Soriano said.
The POEA said insurance coverage requires employers or recruiters to secure a two-year policy coverage for OFWs amounting to a fixed rate of US$144, on top of the premiums. (See: DOLE warns recruiters vs passing on insurance costs to OFWs)
The policy includes benefits of $15,000 in case of accidental death; $10,000 in case of natural death; and $7,500 in case of permanent disablement, including repatriation costs, subsistence allowance benefit, money claims, compassionate visit, medical evacuation and medical repatriation.
A certificate of cover provided by an insurance company that is licensed and certified by the Insurance Commission is now required before the issuance of overseas employment certificate or exit clearance of agency-hired overseas workers.
A recent advisory from POEA said the accredited insurance providers are Paramount Life and General Insurance Corp., Philippine Charter Insurance Corp., and United Coconut Planters’ Life Assurance Corp.
On the other hand, Soriano added that, "already the coverage is going to be extended in new House Bill 3308 seeking to insure all OFWs as they renew their contracts."
Soriano wondered who is going to pay as OFWs who renew their contracts don’t go through recruitment agencies, but have to use POEA as their agency.
"So will the taxpayer pay the bill or will the government pass it on to OFWs?" he said.
The "no cost to OFW insurance premium" is not realistic, he stressed, adding that even under the POEA-brokered Employment Permit System (EPS) for South Korea, the Filipino worker had to pay dearly.
Citing experiences in the EPS, Soriano said OFWs under the program paid all the costs, including their OWWA membership, plane tickets to Korea, visa fees at the Korean Embassy, POEA fees, medical examinations and training expenses.
"The POEA is the exclusive recruitment agency under the EPS program, yet the OFW has to shoulder everything."
According to him, a Filipino worker deployed under the program has to pay P20,000 plus, with the additional costs of language tuition, review and the actual KLT (Korean Language Test) in order to qualify for EPS. And when they are on-site, they have to take out “Return and Casualty insurances" and pay for it through salary deductions at 8.3 percent monthly!
Canceled contracts
Meanwhile, Hong Kong residents have reportedly canceled contracts for Filipino domestic workers, after the Philippine government’s implementation of a mandatory insurance coverage for this type of workers.
Employers, recruiters and workers have scored the new policy, which took effect last Monday, describing it as as unfair and redundant because existing labor laws in Hong Kong already require employers to secure insurance policies for foreign domestic workers. [See story: Mandatory insurance imperils HK hiring of Pinoy helpers]
Reports by Hong Kong-based news sites The Standard and the South China Morning Post said a local organization claimed that over 100 residents have suspended hiring Filipino helpers due to the mandatory insurance. — Fernando de la Cruz/LBG, GMANews.TV
"OFWs will eventually pay for the insurance just as they, in reality, pay for the placement costs ranging P50-150,000 – including plane tickets, Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA) fees, Overseas Workers Welfare Administration Membership (OWWA) fee, visas, foreign brokers and local placement costs, among others," recruitment specialist and former OFW Lito Soriano said.
Soriano claimed that for over three decades, the practice is that OFWs in Asian countries shoulder all the expenses for their employment abroad, even if the Labor Department and related government agencies say otherwise.
"So, the US$72-100 per annum for the compulsory insurance mandated by the new Migrant Workers Act RA 10022, is just another cost on the shoulders of the OFW," he added.
He said, the Philippine Government must realize that policies regarding "zero" placement fees for various destinations abroad are not followed in Asian countries for the simple reason that 95 percent of employers in these countries, as well as their local recruitment brokers, are not regulated.
The policies the Philippine government has crafted would not be honored in most of these countries, he added.
Moreover, he said, the government has not initiated bilateral OFW protection agreements to require foreign employers in Asian countries to pay for the recruitment costs including the exorbitant foreign brokers fees that are usually the major component of the total placement cost.
Soriano lamented most OFWs and the general public are not aware of this reality in the recruitment process.
Compulsory insurance
The insurance premium must correspond to the length of the employment contract and must be paid – "at no cost to the worker" – prior to the release of their POEA overseas employment certificate. [See: Section 23 of RA 10022]
With most OFWs on two year contracts, the true upfront cost is between P6,500 to P8,800, Soriano said.
The POEA said insurance coverage requires employers or recruiters to secure a two-year policy coverage for OFWs amounting to a fixed rate of US$144, on top of the premiums. (See: DOLE warns recruiters vs passing on insurance costs to OFWs)
The policy includes benefits of $15,000 in case of accidental death; $10,000 in case of natural death; and $7,500 in case of permanent disablement, including repatriation costs, subsistence allowance benefit, money claims, compassionate visit, medical evacuation and medical repatriation.
A certificate of cover provided by an insurance company that is licensed and certified by the Insurance Commission is now required before the issuance of overseas employment certificate or exit clearance of agency-hired overseas workers.
A recent advisory from POEA said the accredited insurance providers are Paramount Life and General Insurance Corp., Philippine Charter Insurance Corp., and United Coconut Planters’ Life Assurance Corp.
On the other hand, Soriano added that, "already the coverage is going to be extended in new House Bill 3308 seeking to insure all OFWs as they renew their contracts."
Soriano wondered who is going to pay as OFWs who renew their contracts don’t go through recruitment agencies, but have to use POEA as their agency.
"So will the taxpayer pay the bill or will the government pass it on to OFWs?" he said.
The "no cost to OFW insurance premium" is not realistic, he stressed, adding that even under the POEA-brokered Employment Permit System (EPS) for South Korea, the Filipino worker had to pay dearly.
Citing experiences in the EPS, Soriano said OFWs under the program paid all the costs, including their OWWA membership, plane tickets to Korea, visa fees at the Korean Embassy, POEA fees, medical examinations and training expenses.
"The POEA is the exclusive recruitment agency under the EPS program, yet the OFW has to shoulder everything."
According to him, a Filipino worker deployed under the program has to pay P20,000 plus, with the additional costs of language tuition, review and the actual KLT (Korean Language Test) in order to qualify for EPS. And when they are on-site, they have to take out “Return and Casualty insurances" and pay for it through salary deductions at 8.3 percent monthly!
Canceled contracts
Meanwhile, Hong Kong residents have reportedly canceled contracts for Filipino domestic workers, after the Philippine government’s implementation of a mandatory insurance coverage for this type of workers.
Employers, recruiters and workers have scored the new policy, which took effect last Monday, describing it as as unfair and redundant because existing labor laws in Hong Kong already require employers to secure insurance policies for foreign domestic workers. [See story: Mandatory insurance imperils HK hiring of Pinoy helpers]
Reports by Hong Kong-based news sites The Standard and the South China Morning Post said a local organization claimed that over 100 residents have suspended hiring Filipino helpers due to the mandatory insurance. — Fernando de la Cruz/LBG, GMANews.TV
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