ALKHOBAR, 9 August 2004 — Here’s something worth watching: Philippine labor offices abroad are under instructions from Labor Secretary Patricia Sto. Tomas to come up with a regularly updated list of Overseas Filipino Workers (OFW).
Labor Attaché Delmer Cruz of the Philippine Overseas Labor Office (POLO) in Alkhobar said the monthly registry is part of measures being undertaken to strengthen the security of Filipino workers abroad amid rising tensions in the Middle East.
Cruz told Arab News that the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) in Manila had directed the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA) to immediately provide all labor offices abroad with updated monthly registry of employers and companies, complete with their addresses and contact numbers.
Cruz said the registry will contain the list of names of workers employed by the employer or company including their skills and positions.
This, he said, would make it easier to trace the whereabouts of a missing person by first tracking who is his employer and the nature of his work. “When we saw on television that a Filipino was being hostaged in Iraq, at first nobody knows what’s his name and where he came from. The only clue was he is a trailer driver,” Cruz said.
“Then, the following day it was learned that his name was Angelo dela Cruz and from Saudi Arabia. That was the only time that we started scanning and calling all possible trucking companies here which might have sent Angelo to Iraq,” Cruz added.
POLOs in the Middle East will also be conducting orientation trainings on coordination and assistance to companies who are employing Filipino workers, he said.
The labor attachés will then be coordinating with employers to submit the names and contact numbers of a designated responsible officer with whom the POLO will deal on matters of security and monitoring of deployed workers.
A coordinator will be identified from among the Filipino employees in the company and will be trained on coordination and assistance and to forge a realistic security plan. Cruz said that during their emergency conference held at Amman, Jordan, last July 20, Secretary Patricia Sto. Tomas asked the labor attachés to formulate policy and program interventions that will prevent similar incidents that of Angelo from happening again.
As a result, the Sto. Tomas had instructed the labor attachés to include additional protection for the OFWs who are required by their employers to perform duties outside their contracted country of employment.
OFWs assigned to work beyond the border of his country of employment should be covered by work hazard premium pay which should not be lower than a full month of his basic salary and additional insurance of not less than $35,000.
Also present during the conference where labor attachés Manuel Roldan from Riyadh, Jolly dela Torre from Israel, Eleuterio Cojuangco from Oman, Alan Macaraya from Bahrain, Alex Maraan from Qatar, Angelo Jimenez from Kuwait, and Anabelle Oliveros from United Arab Emirates.
Following this, a DOLE Crisis Management Committee was created. It is headed by the undersecretary for employment promotion and manpower development. The members of this committee are administrators of POEA and Overseas Workers Welfare Administration (OWWA) and the director of International Labor Affairs Service (ILAS).