SENATORS are poised to conduct a separate investigation into alleged anomalies at the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA), the sole government agency tasked to regulate more than 2,000 licensed recruitment and manning agencies deploying Filipino workers abroad.
In a privileged speech marking Migrant Workers’ Day, Sen. Teofisto Guingona III lamented that the POEA was put “under a heavy cloud of doubt after its own administrator, Carlos Cao Jr., admitted with a heavy heart that, indeed, corruption reigns in his backyard.”
Guingona disclosed that he is set to talk with National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) Director Magtanggol Gatdula to determine the timing for the Senate inquiry so as not to impede an ongoing NBI investigation into alleged irregularities at the POEA.
“But, certainly, we will not give up our mandate of legislative oversight, especially when allegations of human trafficking and illegal recruitment have placed the POEA under the darkest clouds of doubt,” he quickly added.
Guingona cited reports that a POEA employee recently confessed involvement in padding job orders in favor of certain recruitment agencies.
“The same employee admitted that she earned P1,000 per job order padded,” Guingona said, adding, “administrator Cao, in a television interview, recounted that this employee was able to accumulate P2 million in 11 months simply by increasing the job orders assigned to ‘client-agencies.’
According to Guingona, job padding has been going on at the POEA, and this was “an open secret” among licensed recruitment agencies. “This is also the reason so many of our workers hold on to POEA-approved contracts, only to be just as vulnerable as the next undocumented migrant worker once they leave.”
He asked: “If the POEA, as the sole regulatory agency for licensed recruitment agencies, is weighed down by corruption and stands accused of being a party to the illegal recruitment of our workers, then what kind of protection can we afford those who leave the country through legitimate means?”
Guingona asserted the need for an in-depth investigation not only on the padding of job orders but also, he added, on “other acts of corruption and connivance between some POEA officials and employees with unscrupulous licensed recruitment agencies.”
“We need to clean up the POEA registry of unscrupulous agencies that have repeatedly violated the rules and regulations imposed upon them by our government,” the senator stressed.
He asked the NBI and the POEA to come up with a list of licensed agencies that paid for their job orders to be padded so that the licenses can be canceled and criminal charges filed against the illegal recruiters.
“I propose a more stringent screening and approval process for new licenses that would include extensive public hearings and publication of the names and faces of those wanting to go into overseas recruitment, he said even as he called for an overhaul of the POEA web site so that an overseas job applicant can quickly verify if a licensed agency had a previous string of complaints leveled against it.
Guingona indicated that the Senate inquiry sought in a resolution filed by Sen. Antonio Trillanes IV into alleged anomalies in the POEA could lead to remedial legislation that would improve and strengthen the POEA as a regulatory body.
He added that in crafting the proposed legislation, he would also consider removing from the POEA’s mandate the “marketing of our overseas workers, which contradicts its own oversight functions over the recruitment industry. How can you regulate an industry that you also rely on for marketing services?”
