NEWS RELEASE - February 19, 2005
References: Connie Bragas-Regalado, Chairperson, 259-1145 & 0927-2157392
Vince Borneo, Information Officer, 0927-7968198

On 1M annual target deployment
Labor chief is not concerned with OFWs' safety; job generation in the country

"Labor Secretary Patricia Sto. Tomas is merely concerned with deployment figures and remittances and does not give a clue on what happens to overseas Filipinos who get into distressful situations abroad."

Thus declared Migrante Sectoral Party Chairperson Connie Bragas-Regalado on Sec. Sto. Tomas' confidence that the OFW deployment in 2005 would hit the one million mark or even surpass it yesterday.

"While Sto. Tomas gloats on the 933,588 documented OFWs deployed worldwide in 2004, she does not show any concern and concrete action for the estimated 500,000 undocumented workers in Malaysia and another 31,000 in Japan. The two nations will crack down on these undocumented Filipinos on March 1 and March 15 respectively," Bragas-Regalado said.

The Migrante party also criticized Sto. Tomas for "her laid-back stance on the case of Robert Tarongoy in war-torn Iraq, on sexually-trafficked Filipinas in Japan, of domestic workers overcharged by unscrupulous recruiters in Hong Kong, Singapore, and elsewhere."

"Credit also goes to Sto. Tomas' headstrong anti-OFW record for the perpetual ignorance of the plight of entertainers who are prone to being trafficked; of the unscrupulous operations of licensed recruitment agencies that overcharge OFWs with astronomic recruitment fees and the widespread flexibilty and contractualization of labor in the home front," Bragas-Regalado said.

The DOLE claims that "there are enough jobs created in the Philippines" and that "Filipinos are not happy to work in the country thereby seeking higher wages abroad."

"A burgeoning number of highly-skilled Filipinos leave the country due to the low wages and the Macapagal-Arroyo government's inclination to favor anti-worker conditions of employers locally. Who can be happy with low wages, high prices and government labor officials that churn out lies? Besides, the DOLE tries to gloss over its own data that show 10.9% (3.9 million) of the labor force have no jobs while 5.4 million are under-employed," Bragas-Regalado pointed out.

"We are forced to endure painful separation from our families. Government has miserably failed to address its obligation to generate decent, stable and well-paying jobs for the people here in the country. This is evident with the DOLE's efforts at doing 'high level marketing missions' to strengthen and expand OFW markets including areas like war-torn Iraq and the Ivory Coast," she added.

"The big problem of the Macapagal-Arroyo government is it's habit of cloaking the long-standing joblessness with manufactured statistics and bogus claims. What types of jobs did it generate in the first place? Most if not all are low-end contractual jobs in services like retail sales, restaurants and call centers. The daily cost of living for a family of six in the Philippines has already reached P492.19 as of December 2004; while the average minimum daily wage is only P300. Also, most employers do not follow government laws on wages and are even given exemptions by the DOLE itself. " Bragas-Regalado ended. #