Agencies hope RP-KSA ties will help resolve issue on hiring scheme

MANILA, Philippines - Agencies sending Filipino workers abroad are hoping that the Philippines’ “strong relationship" with Saudi Arabia will help resolve the issue on the Kingdom’s controversial unified contract scheme.

“We are hopeful that Saudi Arabia will understand our predicament. The Kingdom has been the number one importer of Filipino manpower for the last 20 years," Loreto Soriano, recruitment consultant and member of the Federated Association of Manpower Exporters told GMANews.TV on Wednesday.

Deployment of Filipino contract workers to Saudi Arabia is expected to drop next month as hundreds of licensed recruitment agencies vowed to stop recruiting workers for the country unless the unified contract scheme is postponed or abolished by Saudi Arabia’s Ministry of Interior.

Saudi Arabia employs more than one million skilled and unskilled Filipino workers making it the top destination for OFWs.

Under the scheme, the Saudi National Recruitment Committee (Sanarcom) will serve as third party that will facilitate the processing of visas of overseas Filipino workers (OFW), thereby barring Philippine agencies to directly process the visas for their recruits.

Philippine recruitment agencies deal directly with employers. Under the unified contract scheme, the agencies will have to pass through a Saudi recruitment agency that is a member of Sanarcom.

Philippine recruiters have raised fears that they and their recruits will pay additional fees if the scheme takes effect. They claim Sanarcom will act as a "middle man" in the processing of visas for OFWs.

Soriano said his group was also encouraging employers in Saudi Arabia “with whom we have been dealing with for many years now," to be vigilant and realize the consequence of the scheme.

Victor Fernandez, president of the Philippine Association of Service Exporters, Inc said the scheme “is anomalous and totally unfair" to OFWs.

He said that under the scheme, Filipinos won't be given the opportunity to seek help from Philippine labor representatives.

The scheme will also disallow mediators or any party in settling the disputes of OFWs with their employers, according to Fernandez. - KJTT, GMANews.TV

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