No OFW deployment to Guam in 2010—recruiter

MANILA, Philippines—The anticipated deployment of about 20,000 Filipino construction workers to Guam is unlikely this year, a recruitment consultant said Sunday.

Emmanuel Geslani said Japan’s review of the plan to relocate the United States military base from Okinawa to Guam will delay the planned OFW deployment to next year at the earliest.

“Until US President Barrack Obama and Japan’s Prime Minister agree on the Futenma issue all bets are off on Guam at the moment,” he said in a news release.

In the 2006 realignment pact, Washington and Tokyo agreed to move the Futenma Marina Corps Air Station from downtown Futenma in Okinawa to an airfield to be built at Camp Schwab, a more rural part of the island. Once that airfield is built, Futenma would be closed and 8,600 of the 17,000 US Marines stationed on Okinawa would be moved to Guam by 2014, with Japan shouldering more than $6 billion of the estimated $10 billion expense for building accommodations for the US troops.

Geslani said this US-Japan agreement has been the basis of the meetings between the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration and Guam legislators and businessmen over the past three years for the hiring of OFWs.

Recruitment agencies have been pooling manpower for the anticipated variety of construction activities that the Guam move of 35,000 Marines and their dependents would entail. New headquarters, new runways, barracks, hospitals, and housing for dependents were in the drawing board.

However, in late 2009, newly elected Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama stopped the plan, called for a review of the 2006 pact, and assembled a committee to look at all possible alternative locations for Futenma’s operations.

In reaction, US Defense Secretary Robert Gates said any changes to the 2006 agreement were unacceptable. Even US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said in a January speech in Hawaii, “We look to our Japanese allies and friends to follow through on their commitments, including on Futenma.”

“Our OFWs are raring to work in Guam because of the higher wages and benefits that US and Japanese contractors provide. However, they may have to wait until next year after this yawning rift between Tokyo and Washington is patched up,” Geslani said. - INQUIRER.net, March 07, 2010