Manila archbishop: Gov’t not doing enough to create jobs

Manila Archbishop Gaudencio Rosales lashed at the government yesterday for not providing enough jobs for Filipinos and forcing them to find employment overseas.

Speaking to reporters after officiating Mass marking National Migrants Sunday at Nuestra Señora de Guia Parish Church in Ermita, Manila yesterday, Rosales said it is the government’s obligation to generate jobs and employment for the people.

Rosales also lamented the fact that many Filipinos are now seeking employment abroad and enduring painful separation from their families.

"They have to leave the country to find work. The government should create jobs for them. The first obligation of the government should be to make available the jobs and livelihood," he said.

"There are not enough jobs in the Philippines. There are many Filipinos who are unemployed and underemployed. Government should work hard on this. We are willing to help the government create jobs here."

Rosales also stressed that Filipinos must be given decent jobs here as he scored the government for requesting the Japanese government to relax its immigration policies for Filipinas working as entertainers there.

The Japanese government is poised to implement a new immigration policy that will bar Filipinas from working in Japan as entertainers.

This after it said that a majority of Filipinas in Japan end up being victimized by human traffickers and are forced to work as sex workers.

"Our countrymen need decent livelihood. Japan is right in closing its doors to Filipina entertainers. They are now beginning to realize that this is a crime. Japan though not even a Christian country is already closing the doors to prostitution while the Philippines, despite being a Christian and Catholic country is trying to keep the doors open. It is not right," Rosales said.

"These women must have decent livelihood. It does not look nice on earth and in heaven for a Christian nation to say that Japan must still allow them to enter and work. Let us pray that those in government will be enlightened."

Under the new immigration rules, the Japanese government will no longer accept the artist record book (ARB) as the primary document included in a Filipino entertainer’s application for a visa.

Tokyo instead reverted to the old system, which was in place until 1994, requiring Filipino entertainers applying for a visa to have two years’ training at a foreign educational institution or two years’ experience as entertainers outside Japan.

Nearly 300,000 Filipinos work in Japan, many of them women "entertainers" at bars and other nightspots. Filipino officials estimate that up to 77,000 of them have entered the country illegally.

Labor recruitment firms warn that up to 90 percent of Filipino workers going to Japan would be disqualified under the new law, adopted last month to combat human trafficking.

Japan’s campaign against human smuggling came on the heels of a report from the United States citing Japan and the Philippines "as countries on the verge of losing its war against human trafficking."

The influential Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines earlier supported Japan’s move saying the new immigration rules will help stop the trafficking of Filipinas to Japan as sex workers.

Lack of jobs and better pay force an average of 2,000 Filipinos each month to seek greener pastures abroad. About eight million are working in dozens of countries.

The government depends heavily on the money they remit to their families back home — which reaches at least $7 billion annually — to prop up the country’s sluggish economy. Their contribution and sacrifices had prompted the government to declare them as the Philippines’ modern-day heroes.

As recognition, Congress passed an absentee voting law last year that now enables Filipinos overseas for the first time to vote in national elections back home.