Report: Fewer distressed OFWs seeking refuge at PHL mission in UAE

Philippine authorities in the United Arab Emirates have noticed a drop in the number of distressed overseas Filipino workers seeking refuge at the Philippine mission there, a UAE news site reported Wednesday.

Labor attache Delmer Cruz credited this improvement to closer coordination between Philippine labor officials and placement agencies, Khaleej Times reported.

“We came up with a list of agencies and institutionalized cooperation with them so that the distressed workers’ cases are resolved and they are repatriated,” said Cruz, who assumed his post in July 2012.

Before, he said there were about 100 distressed domestic workers seeking resolution of their cases along with repatriation at the Philippine Overseas Labor Office.

He recalled that by the time the 100 distressed workers went home, "a new group of 100 would come in.”

Cruz, however, said the number of distressed OFWs seeking refuge at the POLO started declining since February 2013, when Manila worked more closely with placement agencies.

The number of distressed OFWs seeking refuge at POLO has since gone down to 30, the Khaleej Times report added.

Also, Cruz said the reduction is due as well to the constant reviewing of the track record of those employing Filipinas as domestic help.

The report noted more than 100 Dubai-based manpower agencies are recruiting Filipinas to work as domestic helpers in Dubai and the Northern Emirates.

Cruz said the big manpower agencies in Dubai have only a 0.2 percent runaway rate.

“This is the model, so that we can come up with the top 20 manpower agencies in terms of runaways. We get the percentage of runaways and rank them to know which agencies have a good track record of helping our domestic helpers," he said.

Tougher stance

Cruz said the POLO reviewed the licenses of the manpower agencies after finding 20 percent of them were still in business even if their licenses had expired.

“We remove them from the list,” Cruz said.

Citing the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration's regulations, the Khaleej Times report said the POLO can defer verifying manpower agencies’ documents if they do not cooperate in resolving cases of distressed OFWs.

But without POLO's green light, the POEA will not allow the deployment of domestic workers abroad.

Recruitment agencies have to be accessible to the workers when they are distressed, and should act immediately when there is a problem before the maids run away. — Joel Locsin /LBG, GMA News

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