Press Release
June 11, 2008

Jinggoy urges POEA, OWWA to institutionalize
merit recognition system for "OFW-friendly recruiters"

Senate President Pro Tempore Jinggoy Ejercito Estrada today urged the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA) and the Overseas Workers Welfare Administration (OWWA) to institutionalize a merit recognition system for "OFW-friendly recruiters" or those that undertake "best practices" in serving Filipino migrant workers.

"This proposed system would serve as a reward system for agencies that give proper service to our migrant workers, so that other agencies would emulate them, and OFWs and would-be OFWs would have a guide or yardstick of what kind of service they should get from their agencies," said Estrada, concurrent chair of the Senate Committee on Labor, Employment and Human Resources Development, and of the Joint Congressional Oversight Committee on Labor and Employment.

The senator said the merit recognition system must not be based on the volume of OFW deployment attained by an agency over a given period, but on the agencies' performance based on the following criteria: 1.) No placement fee, no salary deduction, no hidden charges; 2.) provision of after-deployment service to clients, both workers and employers; 3.) provision of advice on career development/enhancement of the workers upon their return to Manila; and, 4.) provision of support to the workers' family (spouse and children) left in Manila .

He noted the report on a survey conducted in Hong Kong which showed that most OFWs pay placement fees that are much, much higher than what is required under the law, especially despite the ban imposed since 2006 by the POEA on the collection of placement fees from Filipinos deployed as domestic workers abroad.

The report, titled "Recruitment Fees, Wages and Remittances of Filipino Migrant Workers in Hong Kong - 2007," was recently released by the Mission for Migrant Workers based on a survey the group conducted from July 29, 2007 to March 11 this year, which involved 493 OFWs as respondents.

The report showed that more than 51% of the survey respondents said they paid between Php 60,000 and Php 100,000 to their recruiters as processing fees, and more than 10% said they paid even more than Php 100,000.

"Many OFWs fall prey to some recruiters that either shortchange them on service or even exploit them because they are not fully aware of the right service due them," Estrada said.

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