POEA suspends controversial direct-hiring memo

The Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA) on Thursday suspended the implementation of a POEA memo which required foreign employers to pay bonds to directly hire Filipino workers, ABS-CBN News learned.

POEA Administrator Rosalinda Dimapilis-Baldoz ordered the "relaxing" of Memorandum Circular No. 4, Series of 2007, which required foreign employers wishing to directly hire Filipino workers to pay repatriation and performance bonds.

Memorandum Circular No. 1, Series of 2008, was released to "relax the rules [on] direct hires for professionals, those to be employed by reputable companies already providing adequate protection and similarly situated employers" based on MC No. 4.

The new memorandum also said that the agency will process documents of directly-hired Filipino workers using procedures used before January 15, 2008.

The new memo comes after Department of Labor and Employment Secretary Arturo Brion instructed the POEA to suspend the implementation of MC No. 4.

In a statement, Brion said he will convene with the POEA Governing Board on Monday to discuss the directives of President Arroyo on further amendments to the memorandum.

The POEA’s new rules took effect last January 15, amid protests from Filipino professionals abroad that the new rulings will make employment abroad for them harder.

In direct hiring, recruitment agencies are not involved and compliance to the contract is therefore dependent on the capability of the foreign employer.

Before the memorandum was released, these professionals negotiated their own contracts without intervention from the POEA.

With the memorandum in effect, everything in relation to a Filipino professional being hired directly by a foreign employer would have to go through the overseas employment body.

Aside from mandating stricter documentation and processing requirements which would include posting a $5,000 repatriation bond per employee, employers are also required to post a $3,000 performance bond per employee to guarantee payment of the employee’s salary for the duration of the employment contract. The bonds should be secured from local bonding companies.

Further, it said employers are required to provide their employees with health and medical insurance.

Brion earlier said the adoption of a stricter policy on direct hires is aimed at strengthening the protection of the OFWs.

However, Brion said the DOLE is open to exemptions from the total implementation of the memorandum on a per country, employer or workers classification basis on the request of the Philippine Overseas Labor Offices (POLOs).

POEA records show that in 2007, a total of 26,753 OFWs in the household and other services were directly hired by foreign employers. The biggest employer of directly hired household service workers was Italy at 5,564 followed by Canada and Spain, while the Middle East hired the most number of non-household service OFWs on direct hiring basis.

OFWs with employment contracts and work visas issued after January 15 was to be covered by the new guidelines prior to its cancellation.

Migrant group scores POEA's lack of consultation on MC4

A regional migrant organization scored the government for having pushed through with the implementation of a controversial circular which tightened rules on direct hiring without holding consultations either from migrant labor groups or overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) themselves.

In a letter to Labor Secretary Arturo Brion, Center for Migrant Advocacy Executive Director Ellene Sana expressed her group’s concern and of CMA’s co-members in the Philippine Migrants Rights Watch that the problem of non-consultation was not theirs but that of the land-based representative of the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA).

This land-based representative on the POEA governing board has since been identified as former OFW Sectoral Representative Isidro Aligada.

"CMA, together with some of our colleagues from Philippine Migrants Rights Watch and the trade unions who were present in the Friday consultation (with Brion), did not know of any consultation conducted in this regard," the letter stated to the secretary of the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE).

Sana said there should have been a fall-back in the form of the CCOFW (consultative council on overseas Filipino workers) which could have been called for the purpose of consultation.

After all, she told abs-cbnNEWS.com, "the CCOFW is our regular forum with the DOLE and the POEA."

Nevertheless, Sana said "we still believe that the DOLE-POEA could have initiated a series of consultations on MC4 (Memorandum Circular No.4) considering the implication of the policies to the OFWs."

"We demand this much from you because we consider ourselves your partner as affirmed by RA 8042 Section 2 h. which states that NGOs are partners of the State in the protection of OFWs and in the promotion of their welfare, the State shall cooperate with them in a spirit of trust and mutual respect."

Sana reminded Brion that "OFWs are not merely docile subjects and recipients of government policies and programs. Part of their empowerment, of being able to stand up for their rights and be protected is to be visible, counted, consulted and be part of the governance structures of our government. "

Reached for comment, Aligada told abs-cbnNEWS.com he has plans of calling for consultations since MC4 is just a re-implementation of a former order issued by a former labor secretary.

"Mas masipag lang itong si Brion (Brion is just more hardworking than his predecessors)," Aligada said.

He said he will definitely get input on how to amend MC4 to make it palatable both to the migrant groups.

CMA and other migration related groups earlier met with POEA Deputy Administrator for Employment and Welfare Viveca Catalig who explained that the bond to be required of employers of directly hired OFWs would be like an insurance package whose premium would actually only be $50 plus per contract.

Catalig reportedly said "clear existing policies on migrant worker protection" would supersede the circular. Sana explained OFWs in countries like Singapore would be exempted because a standard employment contract there already contained provisions for insurance for possible repatriation and non-payment salaries.

"For destination countries/ territories where the social and labor laws to protect migrant workers are in place and reflected in the work contracts, MC4 guidelines may then not be necessary anymore," Sana said.