Congress should do on-site probe on jueteng operations
that dupe OFWs

MIGRANTE Sectoral Party chairperson today challenged Congress to deepen its inquiry into alleged jueteng overseas operations by doing "select on-site investigations in four countries."

"Overseas Filipinos workers (OFWs) believe that the House of Representatives can help in combatting the illegal numbers game that also exploits their hard-earned remittances by doing on-site investigations in Saudi Arabia, Italy, United Arab Emirates and Hong Kong," declared MIGRANTE Sectoral Party Chairperson Connie Bragas-Regalado.

The House Special Committee on Overseas Workers Affairs started an inquiry yesterday. The said inquiry has yet to progressively produce results in the drive to stop jueteng.

"We are alarmed that government has obviously not been able to eliminate jueteng due to its gross failure to provide decent jobs and livelihood to the poor people. Congress should also investigate the highly-probable links of top government officials - including the First Gentleman - to jueteng operations here and abroad," Bragas-Regalado said.

Migrante has said that OFWs cannot be blamed if they fall into maximizing all avenues to save precious funds by sending their remittances via informal channels for their families to receive even just a little more from the difficult jobs we are in abroad.

"While we welcome certain Congressmen calling for banks to reduce their high money transfer fees, we renew our call for government to provide a state money transfer facility for OFW remittances that do not charge at all. This will help in combatting jueteng and even give relief to OFWs. If government would offer such money transfers for OFWs without fees, no OFW would send their money through the jueteng point man system that does not charge any transmittal fees," Bragas-Regalado said.

"We hope that Congress considers and does our suggested actions in the drive to stop jueteng," she concluded. #