Revoke direct hiring memo, migrants group asserts

An alliance of Filipino migrant workers vowed on Thursday to continue protests against the government’s guidelines on direct hiring for overseas employment until the memorandum is completely scrapped, not just suspended. While the Samahan Laban sa Katiwalian ng Recruitment Agencies at Patakarang MC-04 (SKRAP MC-04) considered the decision of the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration earlier in the day to suspend the implementation of the guidelines as a “victory of OFWs," Dolores Balladares said migrants could not yet let their guard down until Memorandum Circular No. 4 is revoked. Balladares is a co-convenor of SKRAP MC-04. She chairs Migrante International, a militant group composed of overseas workers and their relatives. POEA issued Memorandum Circular No. 1, series of 2008 on Thursday to suspend MC 04, series of 2007, pending deliberation by the agency's governing board on the directive of President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo on Tuesday to relax the guidelines to exempt white collar workers and those employed by reputable companies already providing adequate protection to their workers. The campaign against POEA MC-04 has shown to OFWs that the “unity and actions" of Filipinos abroad are their “best weapons" against any policy of the government deemed detrimental to OFW rights and wellbeing, Balladares said. "Serious concerns still surround us. POEA MC-04 is defeated but is not yet dead. While we celebrate our victory, we also affirm our continued fight for our rights," she stressed. The suspension of the memorandum, she said, “is the result of the united protest of OFWs around the world and that of our families in the Philippines." “We sustained the campaign and were not deceived by the promise of protection of MC-04 nor of the tricky exemption," Balladares said. OFWs, mostly professionals who managed to get their own work contracts with foreign employers or upon recommendation of relatives and friends, have strongly been criticizing the memorandum, specifically the imposition of the $5,000 repatriation bond and performance bond equivalent to three months salary or up to $3,000 to be paid by a foreign employer prior to deployment of a Filipino. The guidelines also require rigid screening of applications for direct hiring by foreign employers through the labor attaches overseas, subject to final approval by the Labor secretary. Foreign employers are also required to provide for health and medical insurance to the Filipino recruits. “Obviously, this government cannot take the heat of opposition that the guidelines generated. But as long as it is just suspended, it will always hang over our heads only waiting for a better moment to get implemented. Thus our call to scrap MC-04 remains," Balladares stressed.. She called on the POEA, the Department of Labor and Employment (DoLE) and the government as whole to address the concerns on overcharging by recruitment agencies as well as the provision of efficient and effective services and protection to OFWs. The government should also address the weakening of the dollar against the peso that has adversely reduced the value of OFW remittances. “Overcharging and other illegal practices of recruitment agencies and their accomplices in the money lending industry still abound despite the suspension of the new rule," Balladares cited. “ We dare the government, if (it is) true to the protection of OFWs, to be decisive in (prosecuting) erring recruitment agencies and institutionalizing ways on how OFWs can be better protected from the greed and abuse of unscrupulous recruiters and money lenders," she asserted. Balladares said the POEA Guidelines on Recruitment and Deployment of Filipino Household Service Workers implemented in January 2007 that supposedly imposed a “no placement fee" policy burdened domestic helpers with the requirement to undergo skills and language proficiency training prior to deployment. "What the agencies have lost by way of banning placement fee, they are now reaping from the training of OFWs. Worse, agencies even now use the training requirement to even charge more without fear of getting slapped with overcharging," Balladares said. Previously, the legal placement fee was only up to the equivalent of one month salary of the worker. However, the training fee has no limitation and thus has opened the floodgates to more charges. "This rule must also be scrapped. It serves no purpose whatsoever for OFWs but only burdens us with even more fees," she said. Aside from this, the group also called for the scrapping of the Omnibus Policies of the Overseas Workers Welfare Administration (OWWA) which, the group said, denied Filipino migrants their rightful services from OWWA. "Our money (with) OWWA is not for the government to plunder. It must be used for concrete services to OFWs and our families which the Omnibus Policies have no intention of doing," Balladares said. - GMANews.TV