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Escudero wants recruiters charging excessive fees jailed, fined
Senator Francis Escudero is seeking a jail term and a fine of up to P500, 000 for recruitment agencies collecting from prospective overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) placement fees beyond what the law allows. Escudero’s Senate Bill 2601, or the Fair Placement Fees for OFWs bill, is pending before the Senate’s Labor, Employment and Human Resources Development Committee. The bill seeks to impose penalties on those who charge placement fees that exceed the worker’s one-month salary. Several issuances by the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA) Governing Board state that “recruitment agencies are allowed to collect a placement fee that is equivalent to only a month’s salary of the workers, exclusive of documentation and processing costs." This provision is stated in Resolution No. 2; Department Order No. 34, Series of 1996; and POEA Memorandum Circular No. 14, Series of 1999. SB 2601 defines placement fee as the amount collected by private recruitment and placement agencies or any person from a recruit as payment for placement services. Escudero said very few recruitment agencies comply with the placement fee cap. "Some collect as much as four times the monthly salary of an applicant which could go as high as P100,000 or even more. Most get mired in debts even before getting hired. Sometimes, applicants back out from the recruitment process altogether because they cannot produce the steep fee," Escudero said. He added that since the country is heavily dependent on OFW remittances to keep the economy afloat, a pro-active policy should be implemented to protect Filipino migrant workers. In 2009, some 1.5 million were deployed for overseas work, which translates to 4,000 Filipinos leaving the country everyday. "Our OFWs keep our economy stable, and there is no bilateral agreement whatsoever between us and the receiving countries to protect them in those foreign lands. If we can't give them some kind of protection outside the country, we must accord them the service and benefit due them in their own land," Escudero said. Aside from disallowing collection of excessive fees, the bill also prohibits the following:
- Collection of placement fee before job availability;
- Non-issuance of receipts for any fees collected from the worker;
- Non-return of placement fee collected when deployment does not materialize;
- Forced issuance of post-dated checks to guarantee payment of placement fee; and
- Forcing an applicant to borrow money only from designated lending institutions to cover placement fee.
