DAVAO CITY, 3 November — A major group of placement agencies has urged the government to conduct pre-employment orientation seminars, or PEOS, nationwide to enable job seekers to avoid the pitfalls of seeking employment abroad.

The Philippine Association of Service Exporters, Inc., known by its acronym PASEI, also urged the government to drop its plan to build a hospital for Overseas Filipino Workers in favor of a network of primary health care clinics to attend to OFW dependents.

PASEI made the suggestions in a position paper it submitted to Malacañang Palace and the Department of Labor and Employment.

“The PEOS empowers prospective Overseas Filipino Investors to know better their rights and avoid abuses at the worksites,” the paper said.

The paper the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA) and non-government organizations should carry out this task of empowerment by conducting pre-employment seminars in the provinces, free of charge, to all interested job seekers.

It said attendance of the seminars should be made a requirement for those applying for overseas work.

“The purpose of the PEOS is to orient job seekers about the benefits and risks involved in working abroad, as well as the procedure and the dos and don’ts in applying for a job,” PASEI President Victor Fernandez Jr. explained in an interview recently with Arab News.

“Armed with the necessary information, the job seeker can make an intelligent decision on whether or not to apply for work overseas,” he said.

Fernandez said the married job seeker should be encouraged to bring his or her spouse along to the seminar so that they can both discuss their options.

He said Filipinos should admit the fact that not everyone is fit to work abroad.

“Marami diyan ang gustong mag-abroad dahil lang sa nai-inggit sa kapitbahay na nasa abroad, pero hindi nila alam ang problema na maari nilang maranasan. (There are many of us who want to work overseas just because they are jealous of their neighbors who are abroad, not knowing the social costs that may result),” he said.

Fernandez said it is a fact that OFWs are exposed to risks such as homesickness, temptations that often result in broken marriages because of long separation of spouses, and children going astray due to lack of parental guidance. “So the PEOS is a way of separating the girls from the women, the boys from the men,” he said.

By explaining the procedure in applying for work abroad, he added, the government could help job seekers minimize their expenses that often results in going back and forth from their homes to the POEA offices just to get the requirements.

Fernandez said the seminars would also help job seekers avoid falling prey to the manloloko, or fake job recruiters.

The PDOS

Fernandez said the PEOS is more important than the PDOS, or pre-departure orientation seminars, that OFWs are made to undergo at present.

While the PDOS has its own use, he said, it is too late for job seekers to change their minds since they have already spent much time, effort and money filing and following up their applications.

The PDOS is given only after an application is approved and the OFW is ready to depart for his or her place of work.

Fernandez also noted that many workers take the PDOS for granted.

“This is understandable because if you are all set to fly for your destination, you are so excited and you cannot concentrate on what is being said by the lecturers,” said Fernandez, who was himself an expatriate worker in the Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia before graduating to form his own recruitment agency.

Fernandez owns the Career Planners Specialists International, Inc., whose clients are mostly in Saudi Arabia and Hong Kong.

PASEI also urged the POEA to relinquish its task of conducting the pre-departure seminars so that it can focus on conducting pre-employment seminars. It said the PDOS should be left to the industry associations which are better equipped or more qualified to do the job.