Letter to the Editor - April 9, 2005
References: Connie Bragas-Regalado, Chairperson
Contact Numbers: 259-1145 and 0927-2157392

Government is pushing more Pinays into human trafficking worldwide

The most revolting reality of job generation under the current administration is its long-standing trafficking of Filipino women.

The Macapagal-Arroyo government is the chief perpetrator of trafficking Filipinas as evidenced by its announcement of 23 new destinations for displaced overseas performing artists due to tightened immigration controls in Japan.

When Japan placed a more stringent immigration law that took effect last March 15, 2005, the Macapagal-Arroyo government did not lift a finger to assure the safety, rights and well-being of overseas Filipinos to be hit by new measures and to create more decent jobs in the homeland. Instead, it sought more locations for the further deployment, abuse and exploitation of Filipino women.

The Department of Labor and Employment (DoLE) even boasted that the results of its market study, as stated in the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA) 2004 annual report revealed that government's growing alternative markets for entertainers are South Korea, Bahrain, Brunei, China, the Commonwealth of Northern Mariana Islands, Diego Garcia, Hong Kong SAR, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Oman, Papua New Guinea, Qatar, Saipan, Saudi Arabia, Seychelles, Singapore, Spain, Taiwan, the United Arab Emirates, the United States, and Vietnam.

Most of these countries have had cases of abuse and maltreatment of Filipinas in the past. Now government wants more overseas performing artists (OPAs) to go to these nations.

Appropriately, the United States Department of State Trafficking In Persons Report in June 2004 classified the Philippines as a Tier 2 - Watch List nation. The said Report specified that the Philippines 'is a source, transit, and destination country for persons trafficked for the purposes of sexual exploitation and forced labor.' This includes those who are deployed as entertainers and are forced into prostitution with or without government's consent.

This adds more meat to our claim that the Philippine government under the Macapagal-Arroyo administration, is the foremost trafficker of Filipino women in the Philippines and worldwide.

The efforts to 'study markets' and pursue the deployment of Filipinas to jobs intertwined with the web of human trafficking market in the world is the proverbial evidence of the current administration's demented sense of job generation. #