By ANTHONY IAN CRUZ
and GERARD NAVAL
January 31, 2008

THE Hong Kong-based Asia Pacific Mission for Migrants on Wednesday challenged the Philippine government to allow direct hiring and the Balik Manggagawa Program to protect Taiwan-bound Filipino workers from recruitment agencies that bleed them with various fees.

Gi Estrada, APMM coordinator for Taiwan, said the Philippine labor office in Taipei has already reported to Labor Secretary Arturo Brion that recruiters are fleecing Taiwan-bound OFWs through recruitment and placement fees costing as much as P190,000 under the current policy.

Estrada said that since Jan. 1, 2008, Taipei’s Council of Labor Affairs (CLA), which is critical of the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration’s policy, has been allowing returning caregivers to apply for direct hiring in Taiwan.

She said the POEA guidelines on direct hiring make things difficult because these require employers to pay a performance bond of around US$3,000 and post a repatriation bond of US$5,000 per directly-hired OFW.

The APMM said it is also urging government to expand to all OFWs in Taiwan the coverage of the Balik Manggagawa Program since even re-hires who need to exit the island every three years are treated as new hires by the POEA when they reenter Taiwan and are again made to pass through Philippine and Taiwanese placement agencies and pay the same placement fees.

Brion has already designated to himself the job previously delegated to the POEA of approving applications for direct hiring in a resolution he issued recently as POEA board chairman. Yesterday, he also took over the job POEA used to perform of approving the licenses of new recruitment agencies.