POEA ADVISORY

Two US employment agencies in POEA blacklist POEA Administrator Hans Leo J. Cacdac yesterday ordered the exclusion of two US-based companies from participating in the government’s overseas employment program for contractual violation under the POEA Rules and Regulations Governing the Recruitment and Employment of Land-based Overseas Workers. Cacdac said the order resolved with finality the recruitment violation case filed against US Opportunities and Royal Hospitality Services, LLC, both employment services company, for their failure to provide several OFWs the jobs specified in their contracts. The POEA initiated the complaint motu propio after the Philippine Overseas Labor Office in Washington reported to Secretary Rosalinda Dimapilis-Baldoz in 2010 regarding the plight of 24 OFWs who were alleged victims of human trafficking for forced labor. To prevent them from recruiting other OFWs, the POEA immediately suspended the license of ZDrive, Inc, the U.S. companies’ accredited recruitment agency in the Philippines on August 20, 2010. Its license was eventually cancelled by the POEA on May 31, 2011. Awaiting the resolution of the case, the POEA also put US Opportunities and Royal Hospitality Services, LLC under preventive suspension and were not allowed to recruit additional Filipino workers for their client companies. The victims said they paid up to P350,000 in fees to get jobs in hotels in Florida under US H2B visa, but were instead brought to Mississippi and were made to work in farms planting seeds and have to live in trailers, trapped in the woods for a month without water and electricity. They were allegedly subjected to threats and intimidation, made to work raking and bailing pine leaves in the dead of winter, and forced to plant 1,800 pine tree seedlings a day for a measly wage of US$40.00 a week. Eventually, they found the courage to escape and got in touch with ZDrive, Inc.However, instead of helping the victims, ZDrive, Inc. referred them to Royal Hospitality Services, which placed them in various hotels and entertainment facilities where they were paid below the minimum wage and their wages subjected to illegal deductions. Cacdac said separate human trafficking cases were already filed against the recruiters in the US Department of Home Security and the Department of Justice in the Philippines. The owner of US Opportunities, a certain Mike Lombardi had recently pleaded guilty to charges of visa fraud, and is now in detention, awaiting judgment on August 6, 2012.

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