OFWs in Hong Kong call for scrapping of OEC


Hong Kong — OFWs here held a picket outside the office of the Philippine Consulate General in Admiralty over the weekend to reiterate their call for the abolition of the overseas employment certificate and the collection of terminal fee.
More than 200 OFWs joined the picket held on January 29 in time for Labor Undersecretary Joel Maglunsod's visit for the launching of the mobile app "OFW Watch."
According to the protesters, the BM online system or the exemption from the OEC that the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) is implementing has resulted in "chaos."
"The exemption to the OEC turned a bad situation much worse," said Dolores Balladates, chairperson of the United Filipinos in Hong Kong (UNIFIL-MIGRANTE-HK), adding the new system has resulted in missed flights, long queues, fixers and unnecessary inconvenience and expense.
"There is now even more confusion, even longer waiting time, and some had been taken advantage of by fixers who charged them way more than what the OEC costs," Balladares said.
"This is what happens when the government does not listen to what OFWs say on the ground," she added.
Protesters also reported that OFWS were forced to buy a new ticket or face losing their employment due to the system of refunding the terminal fee.
By law, OFWs are exempted from paying the terminal fee. The previous administration, however, implemented a blanket collection of terminal fee in air tickets with the provision for refund for OFWs.
Long queues in refund counters at Philippine airports resulted in cases of OFWs missing their flights.
Maglunsod met leaders and members of the group at the Philippine Overseas Labor Office and promised to take up their concerns with Labor Secretary Silvestre Bello III and President Rodrigo Duterte. —KBK, GMA News

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