KAKAMMPI News

Following the signing of labor agreements with three Canadian provinces, the Labor department has set up a Canadian Desk to handle queries and coordinate with concerned agencies on matters relating to the deployment of overseas Filipino workers to Canada. In Administrative Order No. 53, Labor Secretary Arturo Brion tasked director Salome Mendoza of the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration to man the desk at the Office of the Secretary in Intramuros, Manila. The Canadian Desk, Brion said, would serve as the Secretary's arm in coordinating with the Canadian provinces of Saskatchewan, British Columbia, and Manitoba in activities relating to the deployment of OFWs to these provinces as provided for in the labor agreements entered into by the DOLE and the governments of the three Canadian provinces. The POEA, as mandated by law, will continue to handle the actual deployment activities. The Canadian Desk would also attend to queries from workers seeking job opportunities in Cana...

Senate minority leader Aquilino Pimentel Jr urged the government to extend legal assistance to the 10 Filipino nurses belonging to the ‘Sentosa 27’ who face criminal and civil charges for resigning en masse to protest unjust working conditions and labor malpractices in a New York health care center. Pimentel said in a statement on Tuesday that he was told the trial for the criminal complaint against the nurses has been reset from Jan. 28 to April in a New York district court. The civil aspect of the suit will be tried separately. The 10 were part of a group of 26 Filipino nurses and a physical therapist (Sentosa 27) who claimed that their local recruiter, Sentosa Recruitment Agency (SRA), was guilty of violating human trafficking laws, and involuntary servitude. If the Filipino nurses would be convicted, they could face a year in jail on each of 13 counts, lose their nursing licenses and be deported, according to a report by the Associated Press. Following their walkout from the pediat...

A recruitment industry officer endorsed on Tuesday a proposal to liberalize the country’s air policy, hoping it would pave the way for cheaper air fares for overseas Filipino workers. Jackson Gan, vice president of the Federated Association of Manpower Exporters (FAME) said the so-called “open skies" policy has been set aside since 2003 when President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo declared a “pocket open skies" for Clark and Subic economic zones. Opening up the Diosdado Macapagal International Airport in Angeles City, Pampanga and the Subic International Airport in Olongapo City, Zambales would allow more air carriers to fly into and out of the country, and give OFWs the opportunity wider choice for budget flights. “The liberalization of the air policy will benefit both recruitment industry and millions of overseas workers who will get access to cheap fares and frequent flights of air carriers to and from the Philippines," Gan explained. Gan recalled that former National Econo...

Sun.Star: DAVAO CITY - Overseas Workers Welfare Administration (OWWA), an attached agency of the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) tasked to provide welfare assistance to registered migrant workers and their dependents, has identified several projects for the overseas Filipino workers (OFWs). These projects include the Livelihood Development Program, the OFW Groceria Project, the Owwa Education and Training Program, Workers' Repatriation, Legal Assistance, and the Family Welfare Program. The Livelihood Development Program provides entrepreneurial development services and credit facilities to OFWs, their families, and organizations, while the OFW Groceria Project provides livelihood and self-employment opportunities to OFWs and their families through the establishment of 1,000 grocery stores nationwide. In an interview, Owwa Southern Mindanao regional Director Ron Lionel Bartolome said a total of 28 grocery stores have been established in the region as of the second quarter ...

BAGUIO CITY - For those seeking employment abroad as household helper, government wants them to undergo trainings on basic household services. Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA) Regional Director Delfina Camarillo said the move to require applicants for household helps abroad to first undergo training is a means to professionalize the job. The training will not only focus on teaching applicants on how to operate modern household equipment, which are common in the countries they wish to be deployed, it also orients them on the culture and language of the country of their destination. Training for household skilled workers or HSW are provided by the Technical Education and Skills Development Authority (Tesda). Roger Dancel, chief of the Regional Operations Division of Tesda, said scholarships are being offered in the region. The government shoulders the P5,000 fee for every trainee of the HSW for 256 hours. Majority of the overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) are employed a...

Filipinos working overseas should always be careful in choosing parcels that some people ask them to bring to foreign destinations, the Philippine National Police (PNP) said Monday. Quoting a letter of Philippine Ambassador to China Sonia Brady to the Department of Foreign Affairs, the PNP said a number of Filipinos have already fallen victims to illegal drug syndicates who use OFWs as couriers of illegal drugs to China. "The arrest of nine Filipinas in a span of three weeks in Guangdong province and Beijing is nothing less than alarming," the PNP Directorate for Intelligence quoted Brady as saying in her letter. For the period February 2007 until January 2008, a total of 22 arrests have been made in China for alleged drug smuggling involving female OFWs, the PNP said. The suspects claimed that they agreed to carry the parcels of friends whom they meet in transit points in another country in exchange for free tickets to China and a payment upon delivery of said parcels to a c...

A Filipino driver was arrested for supposedly killing and beheading a compatriot following a dispute in Riyadh in Saudi Arabia. Online news site Arab News reported Friday that police in Riyadh's Sulaimaniya District made the arrest within two hours of the crime. Police withheld the names of the suspect and the victim pending completion of the investigation. Ambassador Antonio Villamor, the Filipino envoy to Riyadh, said he has instructed his staff to coordinate with the police and gather the necessary information about the case. Police started their hunt after finding a severed head in a garbage box north of Riyadh. When they found the body, they saw it had nine stab wounds in various parts. Riyadh police spokesman Maj. Sami Al-Suwairekh said they zeroed in on Southeast Asian communities living in the neighborhood and learned that a Saudi family in the area had two Filipino drivers, one of whom was missing. At first, the Filipino claimed he had no information about his colleague bu...