POEA suspends direct hiring memo for OFWs

In view of mounting protests and calls for its scrapping, the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration backtracked on Thursday and suspended the guidelines on direct hiring of Filipino workers by foreign employers. The POEA issued Memorandum Circular No. 1, series of 2008, to put on hold Memorandum Circular No. 4, series of 2007, which provided for rigid screening of applications for direct hiring of Filipino workers and required the payment of repatriation bond of $5,000 and performance bond equivalent to three months salary or up to $3,000. The POEA governing board chaired by Labor Secretary Arturo Brion will meet on Monday to discuss the modifications in the memorandum as instructed by President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo. On Tuesday, Mrs. Arroyo ordered Brion to relax the guidelines and exempt white collar workers from coverage of the memorandum. MC1 states: “To carry out the presidential directives relating to MC 4, series of 2007, relaxing the rules (on) direct hires for professionals, those to be employed by reputable companies already providing adequate protection and similarly situated employers and pending deliberation on the matter by the POEA governing board, the implementation of MC 4 is hereby immediately suspended until further orders. Accordingly, direct hired workers will be processed in accordance with the rules existing prior to MC 4, series of 2007." POEA administrator Rosalinda Baldoz signed the memorandum. In a meeting of the POEA board on Friday last week, Brion it was agreed that major labor exporting countries Canada, Italy and Hong Kong be exempted from the bond requirements, but that the other provisions of the memorandum would remain in effect. OFWs from all over the world, and direct-hire applicants in the Philippines have strongly criticized the memorandum for being "anti-Filipino," saying it would result in loss of overseas employment opportunities because the huge bonds required would discourage foreign employers from recruiting Filipinos. Militant migrants' groups have vowed to continue protests against the memorandum until it is scrapped altogether. They also wanted the withdrawal of a 2006 POEA policy regulating the deployment of domestic helpers and a 2002 memorandum governing recruitment of land-based Filipino workers. The policy on domestic helpers raised the minimum salary from $200 to $400 a month and required skills training and language proficiency on applicants for domestic work overseas. The memorandum on the recruitment of land-based workers supposedly allowed private recruitment agencies to overcharge fees they collect from overseas job applicants. - GMANews.TV