Work out POEA problem, solon urges

Surigao del Sur Representative Prospero Pichay urged the labor department and recruitment agencies to take advantage of the opportunity provided by the temporary restraining order (TRO) issued by a Quezon City court and come up with doable solutions to improve the lot of overseas Filipino workers (OFWs), even as he hailed the court for "allowing some breathing space amidst this brewing controversy."

Branch 220 of the Quezon City Regional Trial Court issued the TRO against the implementation of the POEA Revised Rules and Regulations Governing Placement, which had been scheduled to take effect this month.

The court invoked Sections 29 and 30 RA 8042 or the Migrant Workers Act. Sections 29 and 30 provide for the gradual deregulation of the manpower export industry.

Pichay said that the 2002 rules need "much rethinking, because these do not reflect at all the many market realities and situation faced by all sectors of the industry, from the government to the agencies, to the workers themselves."

The Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) has led the campaign to implement the new rules that include, among others, increased capital requirements and immediate license cancellation.

The DOLE has also trumpeted its one-month salary placement fee program, which it claims would greatly reduce the initial cash outlays of aspiring overseas Filipino workers.

The recruiters, on the other hand, have decried the revised policies, saying these are too "harsh and unrealistic, and targeted at the wrong opposition."

"At least the court recognized that hasty measures are most of the time not the best measures," Pichay said. He added that the TRO provides "great relief to the OFWs themselves, who have their jobs, their welfare, and their future at stake in this battle."

Pichay added that the DOLE must "stop portraying the agencies as the enemy. Cases of extortion and illegal recruitment are isolated. For the most part, the agencies have been the government’s crucial partners in building the manpower export industry to what is now from what it was 15, 20 years ago."

The agencies had warned that the implementation of the new policies would cause massive company closures which may have damaging effects on the quality of labor protection and the quantity of overseas placements in the succeeding years.

"We don’t want that to happen. What we want is for the government to continue working closely with the agencies to secure the jobs and the welfare of our OFWs. Of course, the contributions of OFWs to the national economy cannot be undermined," Pichay said.

He added that in the event of widespread bankruptcy among agencies, "the government is not prepared to take over the private sector’s function. Foreign principals are usually uncomfortable dealing with governments because of the inefficiency and red tape involved in the process."