News Release - April 21, 2005
References: Connie Bragas-Regalado, Chairperson
Contact Numbers: 415-1924 and 0927-2157392
Vince Borneo, Information Officer, 0927-7968198

OFWs in absurd situation under Employment Permit System in Korea

MIGRANTE Sectoral Party Chairperson Connie Bragas-Regalado today criticized the Macapagal-Arroyo administration on "the continued commitment to giving more sufferings to overseas Filipino workers under the Employment Permit System (EPS) in Korea."

"With the Philippine government order to 9,000 OFWs in South Korea to return home before their visas expire on pressure of being blacklisted from ever working there again shows that government has acceeded to an arrangement that is prejudicial to Filipino workers. OFWs under the EPS are placed by both the Philippine and Korean governments in an absurd situation," Bragas-Reglado said.

Philippine Overseas Employment Administration chief Rosalinda Baldoz said that "the 9,000 workers who hold special "E9 visas" must leave South Korea before September 2005" - the end of the one month grace period to leave.

"The Korean EPS is not about job security, the right of migrant workers to work and the right to stay. It is about reneging on those rights on both the Philippine and Korean governments. Besides, the POEA does not even say that OFWs deployed to Korea on E9 visas are not even considered workers but as 'trainees' - meaning they are not entitled to attain regular status and benefits due to local workers," Bragas-Regalado said.

But the POEA has countered that "Korea promised to prioritize re-entry of Filipino workers who will voluntarily leave the said country while those who would not comply would no longer be rehired," Baldoz said.

"Now this is basically wrong. OFWs may be able to return to Korea under the pretext of being given priority after six months only upon the request of their employers. Now is that job security that the Philippine government is talking about?" Bragas-Regalado asked.

Migrante asserts that the EPS is an arrangement "that exempts both the Philippine and Korean governments from internationally-accepted labor standards on wages, tenure and the right to stay in your place of work."

"That is why under the EPS, OFWs will tend to be either without jobs for six months every year, get to be undocumented in Korea and be subjected to deportation. Thanks, but no thanks to the government," Bragas-Regalado ended. #