Privilege Speech of
Rep. Liza Largoza Maza
Congresswoman
Re: New POEA Guidelines: Super “Kotong[1]” for OFWs
January 30, 2007
Mr. Speaker,
I rise on a matter of personal and collective privilege. This is about the new guidelines of the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration regarding deployment of Filipino Household Service Workers.
Last Saturday I went to Hong Kong upon the invitation of the United Filipinos to speak in their meeting and also to consult with the members of the Gabriela Women’s Party in the said country.
At the NAIA[2], I was held for a while at the airport immigration because of a standing travel hold order for being one of the Batasan 6, courtesy of the Department of Justice. But because I was able to secure a court order saying I could travel to Hong Kong, I was allowed to leave finally.
Habang naghihintay ako sa immigration area ng resulta kung ako ba ay makakapunta sa Hong Kong o hindi, naisip ko ang sitwasyon ng ating mga Overseas Filipino workers na naharang sa immigration at hindi pinayagang maka-alis sapagka’t hindi sila nakapagpakita ng mga dokumentong kinakailangan batas sa bagong “guidelines” ng Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA) sa pag-deploy ng ating mga Household Service Workers sa ibang bansa.[3]
Mr. Speaker, the new POEA guidelines, which apparently took effect on December 16, 2006, now require household service workers, to present in additional to other documents, the National Certificate for Household Service Workers issued by the Technical Education and Skills Development authority (TESDA) and the Country Specific Language and Culture Certificate of Competence or Certificate of Attendance issued by the Overseas Workers Welfare Administration (OWWA) before they could leave the country and work as domestic helpers abroad.
In my consultations with OFWs in Hong Kong, cases of our Kababayans[4] not being allowed to leave the country because of the new guidelines started coming out. One case talked about a domestic helper who lost her job because her employer replaced her as she could not return on time because she was undergoing a training to get the required certificate. Another case was that of a household service worker, who after spending money for placement fees, airfare and other government exactions, she was not allowed to leave the country by the airport immigration because she did not have the training certificate from TESDA and OWWA. There are more stories and endless complains about the new guidelines of the POEA. Our OFWs in Hong Kong are seething with rage and strongly protesting the new guidelines.
The Arroyo government, through POEA, is claiming that the guidelines are to protect the rights and welfare of our domestic helpers. The guidelines are in line with the “Super-maids” scheme of the Arroyo government which aims to allegedly “improve” the skills of Filipino domestic helpers to make them more competitive and fetch higher wages abroad.
Ang mga bagong guidelines na ito ay talamak na pangangalakal sa ating mga overseas household service workers na karamihan ay mga babae. Tulad ng kalakal kailangan silang ipakete upang tumaas ang presyo.[5]
Mr. Speaker, our OFWs are not commodities. Hindi sila mga gatasang kalabaw.[6] But the super-maids program of the government is a “super-kotong[7]” scheme designed to squeeze the money of the OFWs to the last centavo. Kinakalakal na sila, kinokotongan pa![8]
Our OFWs are already over-burdened by the various fees that the government charges on top of the monstrous payment that they have to make to recruitment agencies. They pay each document and each signature involved in the whole process of working abroad. In a study by Migrante International, the government alone charges each OFW leaving the country the amount of PhP17,000. With the new scheme, each OFW will be forced to cough-out PhP5,000 – PhP10,000 to undergo the training.
Mr. Speaker, the Gabriela Women’s Party protests against this new guidelines anchored on the super-maids scheme for these will not solve the problems of violence, unfair labor practices, poor working conditions in host countries, illegal recruitment, unfair exaction of fees and other problems attendant to the migration process that our migrant workers face everyday. How can the new guidelines protect the rights and welfare of our OFWs when the tract record of the government speaks of continuous disregard of the plight of our OFWs especially of Filipina domestic helpers raped and abused in foreign lands. How can the new guidelines protect our OFWs when these guidelines are framed on improving the marketability and profitability of our household service workers in foreign countries? In this framework, our OFWs are treated as commodities, not as human beings.
The new pre-qualification requirements may also create a rich breeding ground for corruption. The desperation of many Filipinos especially women from poor families to seek work abroad increases their vulnerability to extortion and unscrupulous agents from both the government and private agencies just so they could get the required certificates. Worse, the money extorted from OFWs is just eaten up by corruption and mismanagement as shown in the unresolved anomalies involving funds generated from our migrant workers. Up to now the issue of the OWWA Medicare Fund transferred to PhilHealth and use in the 2004 elections still remain unsolved. With the coming 2007 elections, we can not prevent OFWs and the public from thinking that the funds generated by the training scheme shall again be used for such purpose.
In addition, the new POEA requirements will only increase the burdens of the OFWs as these will make the migration process more bureaucratic. The new guidelines add on requirements that are already included in the Pre-Departure Orientation thus rendering this program redundant. Many of our OFWs in Hong Kong are also complaining that the re-contract OFWs, the requirement to undergo an assessment of their stills to obtain the certificates will even take away days from the short vacation that they are allowed with. The shortened time to be with their loved ones will be taken away.
Part of the guidelines too are the provisions on the US$400 minimum wage for domestic helpers and the “no placement fee” policy which only pay lip service to the protection of the well-being and rights of domestic helpers. These policies are devious and designed to give false hope to our OFWs that the government is after their welfare. What these policies only ensure is a legal cover for government’s extortion.
How will the government implement these policies when it failed to come up with mechanisms and procedures to enforce such. For one, wages of foreign domestic helpers are set by their host countries. In Hong Kong for example, two wage cuts for foreign domestic helpers were implemented in the past and the response of the Philippine government is either lukewarm or totally absent. Second, our government could not even stop the proliferation of recruitment agencies who are overcharging placement fees. How then can the government implement the no placement fees policy? In addition, in countries like Taiwan and Korea, our government has special arrangements so that labor export to said countries shall be exempted from POEA guidelines. Unless the government exercise its political will to look after the rights and welfare of our OFWs in the face of host countries’ conditionalities our OFWs will always be at the losing end.
The guidelines also say that the minimum age for domestic helpers working abroad is 25 years old as at this age they are mature enough to fight for their rights. Realities of OFWs especially among women victims of violence say otherwise. Violence against women does not discriminate age, sex, race and status. The reality is unemployment among young people is rampant. The minimum age requirement of 25 may even force prospective OFWs to go through racketeers and illegal forgers of documents just so they could work abroad.
Mr. Speaker, our OFWs remitted US$11.4 Billion to our economy last year earning us the distinction of being the world’s most dependent country on overseas workers’ remittances. With the new guidelines, the government will be assured of more incomes while the welfare of our OFWs is at stake.
Thousands of domestic helpers will be affected by the new POEA guidelines. For all the motherhood statements of the Philippine government and the platitudes to the new economic heroes, the new guidelines reinforce the underlying framework of the government that our OFWs are nothing but a deep and bottomless well of revenues for the government. The government misses out the point that the urgent and real issues of Filipino domestic helpers are the absence of real protection of their rights and promotion of their well-being.
Mr. Speaker, our OFWs in Hong Kong are demanding for the scrapping of the new guidelines. I urge this body to address this demand immediately. In addition I urge all the members of the House to call for the immediate suspension of the implementation of the guidelines and conduct a wise and genuine consultation among OFWs on the matter.
[1] A Filipino street slang meaning: “illegal exaction of money.”
[2] NAIA – Ninoy Aquino International Airport
[3] While waiting at the immigration area for any result whether I could or could not leave for Hong Kong, I was thinking about the situation of our Overseas Filipino Workers that were withheld from departing at the immigration and were not deployed due to their failure to present the necessary documents based on the new guidelines by the POEA in deploying our Household Service Workers overseas
[4] Fellow-countrymen or Fellow-Filipinos
[5] These new guidelines are wide-spread commercialization of our overseas household service workers where majority are women. As in any businesses, they have to be packaged in order to command a higher price.
[6] They are not milking cows.
[7] Illegal exaction of money
[8] They have already been commercialized, and equally illegally-exacted!
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