OFWs continue to defy deployment ban in Lebanon, Jordan

MANILA, Philippines – Filipino workers are still sneaking into Lebanon and Jordan despite a deployment ban in these countries, an official of the Overseas Workers Welfare Administration (OWWA) said yesterday.

Speaking at the weekly Kapihan sa Manila Hotel media forum, OWWA Administrator Marianito Roque said it remains a challenge for the government to reduce the number of illegal workers in Jordan and Lebanon.

In Lebanon, there are close to 20,000 documented workers and several thousands more who are undocumented, Labor Secretary Arturo Brion earlier said.

Brion reported that out of the 236 overseas Filipino workers staying temporarily at the Filipino Workers Resource Center (FWRCs) in Amman, Jordan in January, about 180 were found undocumented and only 55 were properly documented.

Roque, however, said that in other Middle Eastern countries like Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, the number of runaways reduced significantly from 2006 to 2007.

“In Saudi, runaways went down from 200 to 75, while in Kuwait from 500 to less than 200,” Roque said.

Roque attributed the decline of runaways to “an improved management of worker centers.”

“The major challenge is in Jordan and Lebanon,” he said.

This developed as the Jordanian government asked the Philippines to lift the temporary suspension on the deployment of Filipino domestic workers, saying it is ready to change certain procedures and update the 1988 bilateral Memorandum of Agreement on Labor Matters to reflect current conditions.

Labor Minister Bassem Al Salem expressed hope that Manila would soon lift the ban after an interim joint committee formed in December 2007 had not only resolved a number of individual cases but also identified certain procedural and practical obstacles in the relevant recruitment processes in the Philippines and Jordan.

The committee consists of representatives from the labor ministry, the embassy and the recruitment agents’ association.

The Philippines’ deployment ban to Jordan has been in effect since Jan. 21 this year after several Filipino workers escaped from their employers due to maltreatment, including the non-payment of salaries.

Early this year, the government also imposed a complete deployment ban to Iraq, Lebanon, Afghanistan and Nigeria because of the political and peace and order situation there.

Meanwhile, the Philippine embassy conveyed its appreciation to Jordan’s Labor Ministry for facilitating the waiver of the overstay fines of 140 OFWs in Jordan.

The workers could now be repatriated to the Philippines after the issuance of the waiver by Jordan’s Ministry of Interior and after the Department of Foreign Affairs granted authority to purchase one-way plane tickets for them.

The list includes 11 underage workers and eight Filipino children born in Jordan with their respective mothers.

Jordan Immigration imposes a fine of Jordanian dinars 1.50 ($2.50) per day for aliens whose residency permits have expired. The overstay fine of the OFWs ranges from three months to three years with one OFW accumulating fines of up to eight years.

Internet scam in the UK

In the United Kingdom, a different form of abuse is taking place, this time for prospective migrant workers, an embassy report said yesterday.

The Philippine embassy in London reported to the DFA that criminal syndicates normally claim to be officials from the British Border and Immigration Agency (BIA), a unit of the British Home Office that oversees the management of migration to the UK.

Ambassador Edgardo Espiritu said in his report that the criminal syndicates carry the official address of the BIA in their internal communications but use email addresses obtained from commercial Internet and email service providers.

Payment for their service is then required to be coursed through legitimate commercial money remittance service providers, which operate from many cities in the Philippines.

Other criminal syndicates use the names of other British or Filipino government agencies in their fraudulent activities.

Espiritu said Filipino workers who have received invitation to work in the UK through the Internet are advised to consult with POEA to verify if the recruitment agency is licensed to deploy workers to the UK.

In another development, the local recruitment industry yesterday pressed for the dropping of bank service charges to help OFWs cope with the depreciation of the US dollar.

“Local banks have already made profit from the float of dollars sent by their correspondent banks and requiring them to pay service charges every time OFWs use ATMs would be an additional financial burden,” Federated Association of Manpower Exporters (FAME) vice president Jackson Gan said.

At the same time, Gan urged Congress to speed up the approval of pending bills creating an OFW bank that will cater solely to the financial requirements of Filipino workers abroad. – Helen Flores, Pia Lee-Brago, Mayen Jaymalin