OFW complaints flood DOLE and Malacanang against labor official in Canada, but Sec. Bello unperturbed—Lilac Center

As of last count, 39 complaints of overseas Filipino workers, licensed manpower agencies, and Canadian employers—and the number is still growing—have been filed before the Office of the President’s Hotline 8888, the Presidential Complaint Center, and the Department of Labor and Employment against the head of the Philippine Overseas Labor Office (POLO) in Toronto, Canada, Labor Attache Celeste Marie T. Ramos, for her disappointingly slow processing of employment documents, the policy research and advocacy group Lilac Center for Public Interest, bared yesterday.

“Worker-applicants to Canada and Canadian employers have complained about waiting for months for the verification of their employment contracts which they claim have been resting idly at POLO Toronto for unknown reasons.  Most of these applicants have qualified for the positions they were applying for since last year after hurdling employers’ interview and other pre-qualification requirements,” Nicon F. Fameronag, Lilac Center president said.

Fameronag said that documents obtained by the Lilac Center show that Labor Attache Ramos, who is an appointee of Labor and Employment Secretary Silvestre H. Bello III and known to be a relative of resigned Tourism secretary Wanda Tulfo Teo, demonstrates boorish and arrogant behavior when dealing with OFWs’ and employers’ complaints, mostly for long delays and inaction that endanger the employment in Canada of the complainant-OFWs. Almost all of the complainants are highly skilled and professional workers.

Despite the complaints, Secretary Bello has been unperturbed, as the documents show, and had apparently sat on the recommendation of DOLE officials to direct the labor attaché to write and explanation to each complaint, summarized in a matrix composed of over 100 pages.

In one of the documents, Alice Q. Visperas, OIC Director of the International Labor Affairs Bureau; Assistant Secretary Amuerfina R. Reyes; and Undersecretary Claro A. Arellano expressed alarm that in less than 30 days from 1 May 2018, the DOLE has “received a total of 22 complaints against POLO-Toronto, 20 of them lodged through 8888”, but only three have been resolved.

In their recommendation, they noted that Sec. Bello has issued a directive to all agencies of the DOLE to comply with the President’s directive to identify key frontline services that can be further simplified and delivered within 72 hours or less. One such key frontline service in the POLO is the verification process.

The Lilac Center official further bared that in the rare instance where Labor Attache Ramos responded to some of the complaints, she could only offer template explanations and sometimes her response was “way beyond the 72-hour reply/update requirement” of the President, as the DOLE itself had noted. In one of her emails to the ILAB in response to a query, Ramos even chided the agency, accusing them of “catering” to potential illegal recruiters.

“I strongly advise you to stop entertaining their complaints as valid because I have paperwork here that shows them in a very bad light,” she wrote from Toronto about one of the complainants, a licensed recruitment agency in good standing.

Once, Ramos wrote an email to the ILAB, saying: “Please inform the complainant that calling 8888 does not mean she will get POLO verification in 72 hours, as is her understanding.”

She also had the audacity to follow-up with the ILAB if it has informed the complainant of her above-quoted response to the complaint, asking for the copy and the date of the ILAB response, only to backtrack later by saying that informing the complainant verbatim of her reply will jeopardize an ongoing investigation.

Ramos had even upbraided OFWs for complaining through the 8888 and the Presidential Complaint Center, which complaints she said she is “forced to answer”.

Fameronag said Labor Attache Ramos does not even spare the POEA from her impertinent behavior which is unbecoming of a labor official. On one of the complaints about delays and slow processing apparently due to the POEA requirement that Canadian employers must hire a Canadian recruitment agency, in addition to a Philippine licensed recruitment agency, to attend to their manpower requirements, Ramos wrote:

“POLO-Toronto hates that requirement. I am willing to gladly organize their (OFWs) efforts so that they can be successful in reaching the leadership who can overturn this POEA policy, a policy which POLO Toronto itself strongly believes is a very ill-advised policy.” She said the policy has no legal basis.

Fameronag said that Sec. Bello should already recall Labor Attache Ramos because she is obviously unfit as a public servant.

“It is evident Labor Attaché Ramos is confused as to her loyalties. She is totally ignorant of her role as labor attaché. In most of her replies to the complaints, she was invoking the amended POEA Rules and Regulations as her basis for being stringent in processing employment documents, but at the same time, she is brazenly blaming the POEA for her woes as subject of OFW complaints,” Fameronag said.

Fameronag noted one particular complaint filed by eight applicants who were already qualified to work as chicken de-boners for a company in Quebec, Canada but are still waiting for POLO to process their employment documents. 

“The applicants were happy to learn that after signing their employment contracts in July 2017, their Labor Market Impact Assessment (LMIA) and Quebec Acceptance Certificate (CAQ) were finally out. However, POLO Toronto took its own sweet time in processing their employment documents which still needs processing at the POEA,” he said. 

“Sir, ang pangako po ng ating  Pangulo na walang dapat magtagal na proseso ng dokumento sa kahit saan man na ahensya ng pamahalaan, na ang lahat ng dokumento na ipoproseso sa alin mang ahensya o opisina ng gobyerno ay kailangang magkaroon ng linaw sa loob ng 15 araw, ngunit ang amin pong ahensya sa Canada at dito sa Pilipinas ay wala pong natatanggap na kahit anong information kung ang amin po bang mga dokumento ay may kulang o walang kulang,” read part of one of the complaints. Labor Attaché Ramos has neither acted on the complaint nor replied to the complainants since it was brought to her attention on June 7, 2018.  

Fameronag, a former undersecretary of the DOLE, said labor attachés normally undergo immersion sessions with the different agencies of the DOLE to equip them with functional knowledge on how the Department operates, a process which Ramos apparently skipped.

“Trouble arises when the very people tasked to manage the POLOs are themselves utterly inexperienced and badly informed of the policies and programs of the Department. You do the queries before your deployment, not when you are already in the Post and there begin to question your own policies. That leaves a bad taste in the mouth,” Fameronag said.

Despite the influx of complaints against POLO Toronto and Labor Attaché Ramos, Secretary Bello seemed unworried, which is a far cry from the actions he took against career labor attachés and assistant labor attachés, such as those in Kuwait and Hong Kong, who he immediately recalled to Home Office for alleged failure to act on complaints by OFWs.

END