Gov’t control on OFW recruitment mulled

MANILA – President Rodrigo Duterte plans to put the recruitment of overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) under direct and exclusive control of the government by the end of the year.

Duterte said Filipinos should apply for overseas jobs through the government to prevent the prevalence of abusive and fraudulent overseas manpower recruiters.

“By December. Buong Pilipinas ito, bawal na ‘yang recruitment sa labas,” Duterte said before OFWs at an event in Quezon City on Friday.

“I have the power to do that because that kind of mechanism of recruiting Filipino workers abroad has been abused at ang mga kababayan ko puro biktima, puro kawawa,” he added.

“Kaya kayong mga recruitment, bilang talaga ang araw niyo. ‘Pag hindi ko kayo nadala sa usapan na maganda, brasuhan tayo,” Duterte said. “Government supervision and control because what happened and has been happening is not acceptable to the Filipino now.”

Duterte renewed his call for creating a department for OFWs by December. A framework for the proposed department should be ready by the second week of August.

The President promised to create a full-pledged department that would streamline and simplify the bureaucratic requirements for Filipino workers aspiring to work or already working abroad.

 “‘Yung hospital, pati lagyan ko ng police attaché sa lahat ng binanggit ninyo na lugar so that if you think that you have a problem here concerning a police, maybe may problema ka, nanakawan o ‘yung sa anak mo, you can go direct to the police attaché,” Duterte said.

“The police attaché will connect you dito sa Pilipinas kung ano ang problema. And they will be trained to help you in legal matters of how to do it in the meantime that you are not here to solve the problem,” added Duterte./PN