Our OFWs in Hong Kong continue to ignore warnings against applying for jobs in third countries. The psychology seems to be that if others made it to those countries, they’d be foolish not to try it.
Our experience with what’s happened to those who made it to those third countries seems to put a damper on those false expectations. There have been a number of cases of our nationals falling into harm’s way in Turkey, Russia and the United Kingdom. Cases of Filipinos not being met at the airport by their supposed agents, working in jobs not applied for, being abandoned, becoming victims of human trafficking—adorn our files.
Why risk it then? Is your situation so desperate that you become deaf to government warnings? Why come to Hong Kong and just make it a jump-off point for a third country? Aren’t you being unfair to your present employer?
The rules against third country deployment are out there for a reason, just as there is a reason for all the rules of the POEA—the protection of our workers abroad. Some rules, like the OEC and the rule against direct hiring, have become unnecessary not because they were not valid in reasoning but because technology and the increasing maturity and awareness of our workers of their rights, have rendered some rules obsolete or slow in adapting to modern-day realities.
The recent case of an employment agency has once again brought to the fore the dangers of third country deployment. The non-existence of the jobs applied for in the UK has failed to deter the gullible from risking their money to this scam. Out of the hundreds who are suspected to have been victimized, less than half have taken the bold step to take the agency to court. More than a dozen have been awarded favorable judgments but enforcing those judgments is another matter. We are doing our best, together with The SUN, the Mission for Migrant Workers and the ATN section, to assist these claimants. At the end of the day, however, our OFWs need to step up and avoid being victimized. Not knowing that third country deployment is illegal and harmful is no longer a valid excuse. They owe it to themselves and their families to be vigilant and not fall for these fraudulent transactions.
Third country deployment is prohibited for the same reason that deploying from the Philippines without a license, without a verified job order and without going through the regulatory gauntlet of the POEA—we need to ensure that our OFWs are not being taken for a ride or being defrauded. Illegal recruitment is a crime and if you recruit Filipino workers for jobs overseas without authority to do so, you are committing a crime. If you commit a crime, you should do the time.
We’ve suspended and recommend the permanent cancellation of the accreditation with the POEA of this agency for the above reasons. But our OFWs must not allow their vulnerability to be preyed upon by the unscrupulous because the more that we trust these businesses and individuals who are out there to beguile you to part with your hard-earned money, the more victims there will be.
The perpetration of this prohibited practice akin to human trafficking is made possible by the expectation of these criminal elements of the gullibility of the victims, and their state of desperation that even strong warnings from the government would not dissuade the victims from “trying”.
In most cases, it is one try too many. In some cases, the victims do not listen to warnings because of the lack of trust in government, and this is the very divide that human traffickers exploit to lure victims and offer them sweetheart deals that are unrealistic and often lead to disappointment, or physical harm.
It is worth repeating this warning for the benefit of our OFWs in Hong Kong: there is no agency in Hong Kong, whether accredited by POEA or not, authorized to recruit and deploy Filipinos to third countries. Newspaper ads of agencies offering job openings in Canada or the UK or other countries are meant to deceive and victimize workers, and have not been verified by the Philippine Labor Attache in those countries.
For information or inquiries, please like our Facebook page, Ask Ko Lang, Kuya Labatt, or call our POLO hotline, 55291880.
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For this issue we welcome back an old friend and a former regular columnist at The SUN, Labor Attache Jalilo de la Torre. Labatt Jolly, as he is known to most people in Hong Kong, used to have a column in The SUN titled “Action Line”, where he responded to work-related queries and complaints or suggestions from our migrant workers. We hope to revive that column soon. In the meantime, he has kindly responded to our request for a self-written piece on third-country deployment, and why the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration or POEA expressly forbids recruitment agencies from engaging in this practice.
