Groups slam OWWA chief over questionable PDOS deal


Several non-governmental organizations (NGOs) advocating for the welfare and protection of Filipino migrant workers have condemned Overseas Workers Welfare (OWWA) Administrator Hans Leo Cacdac over his reported plans to hand over the conduct of Pre-Departure Orientation Seminars (PDOS) for all departing OFWs exclusively to a favored group.

Poe Gratela, spokesman of the NGO Movement to enhance PDOS (Movement Enhance), said Cacdac’s plan to authorize only placement agencies under the banner of Coalition of Licensed Agencies for Domestic Service Worker (CLADS), if true, is highly questionable and anomalous.

Gratela noted that Cacdac might have conveniently forgotten that many of the member agencies of CLADS were the subject of his investigations when he was still Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA) chief due to their shady operations, especially on issues of human rights.

“Why the sudden turn-around and alliance with these people?” Gratela said.
All OFWs are required to take PDOS which is a vital government education and information to prepare and equip them for overseas work and prevent abuses against them in countries where they will be placed.

Under the amended version of Republic Act 8042, otherwise known as The Migrant Workers Act of 1995, NGOs such as Movement Enhance that are duly recognized as partners of the state in the protection of OFWs are authorized to conduct PDOS in exchange for minimal fees.

Lately, however, Labor Secretary Silvestre Bello has been critical of PDOS and threatening to stop its implementation altogether purportedly because of its failure to live up to expectations.

Gratela and his group raised the possibility that some vested interest groups had fed Bello with wrong information about PDOS that earned his ire before negotiating with Cacdac and convinced him to exclusively authorize CLADS members to conduct the seminars.

“It is well-orchestrated move designed to discredit NGOs and have been replaced by CLADS members and take full control of the government program,” he opined.
“While we admit there might be some operational problems facing PDOS, the NGOs are not to be blamed solely. OWWA is partly, too” Gratela pointed out.
Gratela further disclosed that CLADS is envisioned to be the mother group with all agencies sending household workers to Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, Kuwait, Qatar, under its wing.

“The plan is dangerous with clear monopoly in mind,” Gratela said, adding that if the takeover by CLADS of PDOS succeeds it would be a clear violation of RA 8042 which stipulates that NGOs are authorized to hold PDOS being partners of the state.

According to sources privy to the developments, a copy of the draft order stating, among others, that CLADS has been recognized by Cacdac as the sole entity authorized to conduct PDOS is now being circulated at POEA, OWWA and DoLE offices.

“If this is true, then Bello must clarify this action, since the idea of transfer has not been clarified to multi-stakeholders meetings among PDOS providers within the industry” he stressed.

Although sighted by Bello’s statements and Cacdac moves, various NGOs engage in the conduct of PDOS have opted to go on high road and exhausted all possible legal means to explain the real reason behind the issue.

In a letter to President Duterte, one of the convenors of the Movement Enhance, Abdulhusin Kashim who is a former dean and diplomat and chairman of the Dumlag Council, has sought to rectify the issue over the PDOS mess.

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