MANILA/JEDDAH, 7 October 2007 — The Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA) has disqualified a Jeddah-based supermarket chain from further hiring Filipino workers and suspended the license of two local recruitment agencies for circumventing the country’s laws.

Blacklisted was the Sawary Marketing and Restaurant Group, which is facing a complaint from the Philippine Overseas Labor Office (POLO) for allegedly bringing Filipino workers to Jeddah on visit visas and employing them in its supermarket stores.

Suspended were the Alba International Placement Agency and Multi-Resources Development Corporation (MRDC), which recruited more than 60 workers from 2005 to 2007 for Sawary’s supposed “training” project.

Alba and MRDC accused the POEA of not calling them first to give their side. But the agency tasked to look for overseas markets for Filipino workers stood firm in its decision.

POEA Administrator Rosalinda Baldoz signed the disqualification and suspension orders last month upon the recommendation of Labor Attaché Bulyok Nilong, head of the POLO in Jeddah, who has taken up the case of the Sawary workers.

Citing Nilong’s report, lawyer Necitas Jerez of the POEA Adjudication Board told Arab News that 45 Filipino workers recruited in two batches by Alba and MRDC have ended up being exploited by Sawary. The number does not include the third batch of 23 workers who were brought to Jeddah under the same scheme last February. They were sent home before their visas expired.

Community members in Jeddah who have been helping the workers said the POEA had actually been “playing deaf” to Nilong’s complaints until Consul General Pendosina N. Lomondot reported the illegal recruitment scheme to the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) last August.

The DFA passed on the information to Labor Secretary Arturo Brion, who immediately ordered the POEA to take action.

Baldoz, in her order, noted that Sawary is not connected with any licensed Philippine agency.

Arab News sought the company’s side and Hani Hinawi, Sawary Supermarket representative, said only seven of these workers remain in Jeddah.

“We are doing our best to resolve the matter as soon as possible,” said Hinawi.

Arab News learned that several Sawary employes including a high official had been sacked for getting the company into this mess, but Hinawi wouldn’t confirm this.

The Philippine Consulate yesterday that a subpoena had been issued by the Saudi Labor Office to answer the complaint filed by the POLO.

Living in Penury

Jeffrey T. Ponce, one of the victims employed by Sawary as merchandiser, said the number of stranded workers has increased to 12 as some of those from the first batch who were not repatriated have joined the seven. Ponce was part of the second batch, which arrived in the Kingdom in May 2006.

“We are living on charity from concerned members of the Filipino community since we are no longer working,” Ponce said.

As reported earlier by Arab News, the first batch of 33 workers entered the Kingdom in September 2005 ostensibly to be trained by Sawary. They were promised work permits one month after their training. MRDC processed their papers and Alba International Placement Agency sent them to Saudi Arabia.

Documents obtained from the POLO in Jeddah showed that the deployment of the workers using visit visas was made possible through letter of a POEA official readily agreeing to an advisory by Sawary to train the workers for future jobs.

Tacit Approval

Teresita T. Laurel, director II of the POEA’s Land-based Employment Center, wrote back to Sawary president Reda Basha saying: “We interpose no objection to said visit cum training and it is understood that POEA processing is not necessary at this point.”

Laurel, in a phone interview, said she wrote the “no objection” letter to Sawary on instructions of a “higher official” that she refused to name. But she said the letter should not be interpreted as a go-signal for the worker-trainees to enter the Kingdom via the visit visa route.

This “no-objection” letter, she explained said that “we pose no objection to the training” that Sawary is doing and thus it may train named relatives of some OFWs who already have work permits.

“It is not approval of the sending of trainees,” she stressed.

Laurel was transferred to the Sea-based Employment Center as executive director last August after the plight of the workers were reported by media. She denied that she was being penalized. “I am not being suspended because of the Sawary issue,” she emphasized.

Her successor at the Land-based Employment Center, Director Maybelle Gorospe, explained that the POEA allows the deployment of OFWs using visit visas, provided that the employer is accredited by the POEA and visit visas would be converted to work visa status after a month of training.

She said the employer must also promise that the worker would be repatriated to the Philippines if no work permit is issued, and that this arrangement should be disclosed fully to the OFW-trainees.

Sawary’s Reda Basha, together with the MRDC, did promise in letters to the POEA that the “trainees” would be given free round-trip tickets, free medical monthly allowance of $250, free accommodation and no placement fees. They also promised that should the workers be hired to work, they would first be sent to the Philippines so that their papers would be processed through the normal way.

Just a Ploy

Laurel and Gorospe did not say why the POEA allowed two more batches to leave for Jeddah despite Nilong’s complaints of violations by the employer of its commitments to the first group.

Consulate and POLO officials said it was very clear that the “training” program was just a ploy to circumvent the labor laws of both the Philippines and Saudi Arabia.

The stranded workers said in their sworn statements filed with the consulate that each of them were made to pay 35,000 pesos (about $800) to Alba as placement fee. The amount was in addition to 2,825 pesos they paid for medical examination and 2,500 pesos as “training” fee.

Most of those from the first batch were eventually sent home. Those of the third batch, who arrived last February, were all repatriated upon the expiration of their visas last May after a police general who learned of the plight of the workers reportedly called the Sawary management and told them they were violating the Kingdom’s labor and immigration laws.

“Because of the shortened stay of the third group, we were stopped by management from leaving,” said Robert Tornedo, a high school teacher who gave up his teaching job in Aringay, La Union, “for greener pastures.”

The stranded workers said that while they would have preferred to continue working, they did not have peace of mind due to the company’s failure to provide iqamas and work permits.

“We have been living in fear. We could not go out, like other workers do, because we were afraid of getting arrested by the authorities,” said Raffy Flores, one of the stranded workers.

The workers hope the POEA would compel Alba International to return the 35,000 pesos (about $800) each of them were made to pay as placement fee.