OFWs laud, slam DOLE awards for 100 model overseas employers

by JULIE JAVELLANA - SANTOS
OFW Journalism Consortium

OVERSEAS Filipino workers (OFWs) in an email group have expressed mixed reactions to an announcement by the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) that it will honor outstanding overseas employers with the First International Employers Awards (FIEA).

Labor Secretary Patricia Sto. Tomas has announced that a screening committee composed of members from the DOLE's attached agencies dealing with OFWs would be organized to select about one hundred model employers.

"It is time that we recognize and honor the employers who trust and recognize our overseas workers," she explained.

According to Sto. Tomas, the deserving employers will receive trophies at a ceremony in Malacanang after an international gathering of employers in Manila on November 21 and 22.

High time

Rashid Fabricante, an OFW leader in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia praised the DOLE saying its intention is good because, "it is high time to recognize employers (foreign based) who, in the 30 years of the OFW diaspora, have provided the OFWs sustained income, upgraded their skills so that they were able to excel in their professions, contributing to the growth of the company and becoming a source of pride to the country."

However, Fabricante would like to know "who are these employers and what parameters were used to nominate or confer them these awards".

He suggested that the DOLE post the names of the nominees in the OFW e-mail message board "and let the OFW employees judge them". Then, he added, "At the same time, why not identify also the blacklisted recruitment agencies back home especially those agencies who continue to deploy people."

Ludicrous

California-based OFW Ren Arrieta, a long-time campaigner for the passage by the Philippine Congress of the Absentee Voting Bill, scoffed at the idea of an employers' award calling it "ludicrous". He pointed out that the employers usually employ OFWs for profit and will not care about an award "coming from a government wracked by scandal."

Such a "delusional patronizing attitude to be brought to foreign shores at that makes me cringe in shame," Arrieta said.

Arrieta scoffed that "this is just an added unnecessary expense for a government whose squandering habits are the source of the budget deficit year in year out. Maybe the government should focus first on cleaning the bureaucracy from top to bottom."

A very positive move

OFW Offie Bakker in Singapore, however, welcomed the DOLE initiative. "I welcome this very wise, very positive move of our labor department to honor outstanding employers around the world with enthusiasm and with my full support. There is no doubt that our good, sincere and caring Labor Secretary is trying her best to improve the welfare and plight of our long-neglected overseas workers around the globe," Bakker said.

But, she said, Sto. Tomas should also recognize outstanding Filipino professionals and expatriates as this would boost morale as well as improve and enhance the image of Filipinos abroad.

"In Singapore," Bakker said, "contract domestic helpers are always given prominence forgetting we also have here Filipino professionals and expatriates who have contributed to the welfare of our contract workers and to the development of Singapore."

A duplication

Former President of the Kapulungan ng Samahang Pilipino (Kasapi) based in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia Abdulkhair "Bong" Guro, said the international award for employers of OFWs seems to be a duplication of the bi-annual presidential awards of the Commission of Filipinos Overseas (CFO).

"There is a category in these awards for employers but there is just too much cheating in these awards," Guro said in an exclusive interview. He said there are employers who give generously to Filipino community groups as well as to the OFWs in their employ "but never get to win awards."

Labor Undersecretary Manuel Imson earlier said the award for employers would "help catalyze and promote the best practices in human resources working to reinforce stability and growth in accordance with internationally recognized and accepted conventions and standards."

But according to Ren Arrieta, the labor department "should focus more on the needs and aspirations of OFWs, which is the right to suffrage," rather than pursue such a "shallow expensive undertaking."

Sto. Tomas said the FIEA would be like the Bagong Bayani Awards which honors the country's outstanding OFWs and pays tribute to their significant efforts in fostering goodwill among peoples of the world. Many OFWs, however, question the integrity of the Bagong Bayani Awards, which, they say, can be won through palakasan (aggrandizement). The selection and nomination process, they say, is not objective.