LABOR Secretary Rosalinda Baldoz on Sunday ordered the investigation of reports that labor attachés and welfare officers in Kuwait were allegedly accepting bribes from recruitment agencies.

She said the recall of these labor officers in Kuwait effective May 31 will pave the way for the investigation of their alleged wrongdoing. She clarified that these officers have not been sacked but were merely recalled as the investigation has yet to start.

“The purpose of the recall was to preserve and ensure the integrity of the fact-finding investigation that I have ordered against the Philippine Overseas Labor Office officials, and the investigation will begin next week,” said Baldoz over the weekend.

She said these officials will be given due process based on existing administrative rules in the Civil Service.

Earlier, an alliance of overseas Filipino migrants’ groups in the Middle East urged Baldoz to file administrative and criminal charges against erring labor officials in Kuwait who were accused of accepting bribes from recruitment agencies.

John Leonard Monterona, Migrante-Middle East regional coordinator, said his group welcomes the immediate recall of the accused labor officials in Kuwait, “to give way to the investigation to be conducted next week as announced by no less than Secretary Baldoz.”

Several distressed and stranded Filipino workers who have been staying at the Philippine Embassy-run Filipino Workers Resource Center in Kuwait earlier accused labor attachés Ofelia Castro-Hudson and Vidal Vivo of “selling” them to recruitment agencies for “cash or gifts.”

“The accusation, especially coming from distressed Filipinos themselves, must be heard and investigated. This is not the first time we have heard such reports,” Monterona said.

Monterona said reports reaching his group indicate that the labor officials are forcing run-away and distressed Filipino workers to seek other employers so that they could still earn while absconding from the first and original employer.

“The act of transferring a worker from one employer to another in exchange of money or gifts is essentially human smuggling or trafficking punishable under the Migrant Workers Act, or Republic Act 10022,” Monterona added.

Monterona also revealed that his group has received that some Philippine Overseas Labor Office (Polo) personnel in Kuwait and in other countries in the Middle East “are accepting money from recruitment agencies in exchange of job-order referrals from prospective employers.”

He claimed that by merely referring job orders to a recruitment agency, a labor official is paid ranging from P50,000 to P100,000. “This report must be investigated, too,” Monterona suggested.

Envoy defends Polo official

PHILIPPINE Ambassador to Kuwait Shulan Primavera, meanwhile, asked Baldoz to reconsider the recall of Assistant Labor Attaché Ofelia Castro-Hudson, calling it a “grave act of injustice.”

In his letter to Baldoz, Primavera said he is willing to stake his 36 years of dedicated service to the government to assure her that the accusation against Hudson “is unfounded, a misnomer and is ill-motivated.”

“Madame Secretary, please believe me when I say I have the interests of the entire Philippine bureaucracy represented in Kuwait at heart when I wrote this letter,” said Primavera.

“Please reconsider your decision to have Ms. Hudson recalled to the [Department of Labor and Employment] home office. On the contrary, I strongly recommend that her assignment to Kuwait be extended for another two years for the greater national interest and practical consideration.”

He stressed to Baldoz that he refuses to be “stampeded into taking an action that will make me a party to the commission of a grave act of injustice because no complaint whatsoever has been filed against Hudson before the embassy to justify her recall.”

Primavera lamented that the very noteworthy undertaking by Hudson and labor officers in Kuwait, that of finding new employers for distressed household workers  taking shelter at the Polo’s Filipino Workers Resource Center, has been maliciously characterized as pagbebenta,  or alleged sale, of distressed workers.

He described the accusation as baseless, because no monetary or any material consideration is involved in the transfer of the distressed workers to a new employer, which is effected only upon their insistent request.

“There is no exploitative motive on the part of embassy labor officials. In fact, their motive is to help these distressed household workers find new employment while their cases are being settled by Kuwait government offices,” he said.

“Embassy labor officials exercise utmost prudence in transferring distressed household workers to ensure that they are not exploited or abused anew by being very selective in the choice of their new employers, that this new household is known to the embassy labor officials for easier monitoring.”

Primavera said the arrival of many Filipino household workers in Kuwait is not known to the embassy, as most of them are undocumented workers whose existence is made known only to the embassy once they have encountered problems or absconded from their employers and sought shelter at the FWRC.

He said he has been working with Hudson for many years now, including in his first stint as ambassador to Kuwait from 1994 to 1999, to vouch for her integrity and dedication to service. --With B. Fernandez