ALKHOBAR, 21 October — Members of the Saudi National Recruitment Committee (Sanarcom) here in the Eastern Region had asked the Philippine Embassy to speed up the verification process of job contracts and remove unnecessary requirements on their application to hire Filipino workers.
Mohammad Al-Mohammadi asked Assistant Labor Attaché Jalilo dela Torre, head of the POLO-OWWA Eastern Region Operations, said there are some papers required to be filled up that cause too much delay in the hiring process.
The local recruitment agencies here complained that they have to travel to Riyadh to process their application and it takes several days at the embassy to verify the documents.
According to the Saudi recruitment agencies, it was only the Philippine Overseas Employment Agencies (POEA) in Manila which used to verify the employers’ job contract.
“We hope to employ more Filipino workers. However, we ask the embassy to lessen the needed processing papers and delete the unnecessary requirements to be complied with, which causes too much delay,” Al-Mohammadi, owner of the Al-Mohammadi Manpower Trading Establishment in Dammam, said during the dinner meeting held Saturday night at the Park Hotel.
Dela Torre said that the embassy is doing its best to speed up the verification process he also noted that the number of required documents were formulated by the POEA in Manila. “We only verify,” he said.
He welcomed ideas that could help solve the problems being encountered both by the Saudi and Filipino recruitment agencies.
“As you are the same groups being affected with these regulations, I might as well ask your help to offer solutions to the problem,” dela Torre said, calmly citing that there is no consulate or extension office present in the Eastern Region to process their job contracts.
The dinner meeting was hosted by the 25-member delegation of the Overseas Placement Association of the Philippines (OPAP) which is currently on visit in the Kingdom to promote Filipino labor in Saudi Arabia.
Eduardo Mahiya, OPAP president and general manager of the International Resource Development Services, said that the Kingdom is still the major market for Filipino manpower. However, he admitted that the number of deployed Filipino workers had dropped tremendously by 50 percent from an estimated 800,000 in 1999 to around 400,000 last year.
The delegation also met Saturday morning with the officials of the Eastern Province Chamber of Commerce and Industry (EPCCI). During their visit in Riyadh last week, OPAP received assurance from Sanarcom to hire more Filipino skilled workers despite the host country’s move to open its labor hiring from Vietnam and China.
Lupo Rivera, OPAP executive vice president and president of Human Aggregates Phils., also said that his principal manning a hotel industry “still prefer to hire Filipinos because they are more industrious and hardworking, and their high proficiency in speaking English.”
OPAP is on a marketing mission to help the Philippine government provide employment to hundreds of thousands of unemployed Filipinos back home. Romeo Nacino, president of the PERT/CPM Manpower Exponent and chairman of the OPAP mission, told Arab News that the Philippine government should ease up some of these regulations for big companies hiring hundreds of OFWs, who were also affected with this new verification process.
Nacino also said that this is the first time a bigger manpower delegation had visited the Kingdom. The OPAP mission earlier went to London and just recently to Dubai. Part of their team will proceed to Jeddah from here and some will be going to Qatar to harness more jobs for Filipinos.
The other members of the OPAP delegation are Anthony Gerald Maranon, Uniwide Technical Services; Domingo Jangayo, DMJ International Resources; Rodrigo Collado, Madison Overseas Placement; Domingo Carola, Mori International Agency; Ismaelito Rama, Prime RSA Manpower; Donne Saunar, Jerphil Overseas Placement; Leoncio Alfredo, Yangwha Human Resource.
Loreto Soriano, LBS E-Recruitment; Bob Mason, BM Skyway; Benedicto Morcilla, Morland Manpower Services; Ernesto Salting, International Progress; Jorge Bondad, JGB Associates; Romeo Ressurreccion, Benton International Recruitment; Muhammad Rasyid Abdullah, Aisyah Trading & Services.
Norma Corral, Khalid International; Violeta Jacob, Jean-Louise Modern Concept; Alicia Devulgado, ABD Overseas Manpower; Myra Parazo, Blazing Star International; Josephine Kadir, GBMLT Manpower; Benilda Mendoza, Becman Service Exporter; and Linie Pascua, Worldcare Phils.
The OPAP team was accompanied by Daisy Ople, executive vice president of Manila International Travel, who arranged the itinerary and tickets of the manpower marketing mission.
