MANILA, 11 July 2004 — President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo has said the performance of Philippine foreign service officers will now be assessed partly on the way they treat and serve Overseas Filipino Workers (OFWs).
In a speech during the Overseas Employment Summit 2004 in Manila on Friday, the president also urged non-government organizations (NGOs) and the private sector to be part of a monitoring system to ensure that the foreign service corps is service-oriented.
“I invite your industries to help monitor the performance of the foreign service corps,” she said.
The president welcomed initiatives to set up the Tripartite Consultative Council under the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) and Philippine Overseas Employment Agency (POEA) to institutionalize the OFW and private sector participation in overseas employment.
“That would be the avenue to an official evaluation of the emphasis skills of our foreign service officers (FSOs),” she said.
The role of FSOs in protecting the welfare of overseas Filipinos has been scrutinized once again following the death of three Filipino maids trying to escape from abusiveemployers in Lebanon. Critics have said at least one of the maids would not have died had officials at the embassy in Beirut not told her to return to her employer when she came seeking help.
Documents from the Commission on Filipinos Overseas (CFO) show there are 7.76 million Filipinos residing abroad. Around 3.38 million of them are so-called overseas workers, while 1.81 million are transients without complete documentation, CFO research officer Ivy Miravanes said.
As of February last year, some 1.4 million of them are deployed in the Middle East.
While reiterating her inaugural promise to create from six to 10 million jobs in her next six years “so that they will have reason to stay in the Philippines,” she said that many would still be drawn to seek greener pastures abroad.
“This is an inevitable result of the globalized regime where labor, capital, many resources and many goods move from one frontier to another. This is not necessarily bad as long as we adhere to the common standards of treatment and compensation and as long as desperation is not exploited for nefarious ends,” she said.
Vulnerable to Exploitation
Arroyo said the bad side of such exodus was that many jobseekers become vulnerable to exploitation.
“We know the enemy, the illegal recruiters,” she said. “Lured by sweet talk about dollars to be earned, many innocent Filipinos, because of these illegal recruiters, ended up in jail and suffered in the hands of unfit employers.”
Last year, at least 1,625 Filipinos were reported to have been victimized by illegal recruiters while at least 846 others were victimized from January to June this year, according to government statistics.
She said the summit, which drew together foreign and labor officials and representatives of legal placement agencies, was all about preventing the exploitation of desperate Filipinos.
She said she has ordered several government agencies to come up with a “worldwide doctrine of safety” for overseas Filipino workers to keep them safe from terrorism and abuses by recruiters and employers.
Hunt ‘Em Down
To show that she meant business, Arroyo said she was also appointing as head of the Presidential Task Force on Illegal Recruitment a former police officer known as a tough campaigner against the illegal drug trade.
Reynaldo Jaylo earned his spurs in the police by arresting big time drug traffickers and rejecting huge bribe offers when he was a lieutenant in Manila’s Western Police District. He was plucked out by Arroyo as head of the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency’s Task Force Hunter.
Arroyo said she was giving the task force substantial budget “to hunt down illegal recruiters and make them pay for their crimes,” which she described as economic sabotage.
“Jaylo shall hunt down these illegal recruiters and make them pay for their crimes,” the president told the audience, composed mostly of labor officials and representatives of recruitment agencies, with a few OFW groups and advocates.
She also ordered Jaylo to run after those responsible for fake passports, fake visas and “those who shepherd women like cattle to nightclubs as well as the corrupt airport and immigration officials.”
Closing Ranks
To complement the campaign, she ordered the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) to come up with a performance appraisal of all licensed recruitment agencies.
“Those who deployed a high number of runaways afterward must be closely monitored, if not suspended,” she said.
She said the POEA and Overseas Workers Welfare Administration (OWWA) should also intensify country-specific orientation seminars for OFWs.
She also called on industry representatives to reach out to children of OFWs and provide them with emotional support. “Tough times are ahead at home and abroad so let us take this opportunity to close ranks to build a brighter future for our people,” she said.
Arroyo said the summit was a “fitting tribute to our OFWs who are truly our contemporary heroes.” She thanked them for giving her an “overwhelming mandate” in the recent presidential election and vowed she would not take this mandate lightly.
“Like all Filipinos, my heart bleeds for our countrymen whose lives are at risk in foreign lands,” she said. (Additional input from Inquirer News Service)
