Tags: Filipinos Abroad, Labor and Employment
By Anna Valmero
PASAY CITY, METRO MANILA – If people from other countries call the Philippines for technical assistance, labor rights advocate Susan “Toots” Ople believes Filipinos can likewise help their countrymen avoid becoming victims of illegal recruiters.
Ople envisions a call center that will link various government agencies and help would-be overseas Filipino workers or OFWs by verifying recruitment agencies.
Ople founded and heads the Blas F. Ople Policy Center, which provides assistance to OFWs. She discusses plans of establishing a one-stop call center that will link the Overseas Workers Welfare Administration, Department of Foreign Affairs and Filipino embassies abroad.
“For example, you are a jobless Filipina in Laoag and someone offered you a chance to work abroad and leave within one week in exchange for a usually exorbitant placement fee, you can check with the center if the recruiter is not bogus and if such job offer exists,” Ople explains.
“This is critical because we are providing an intervention to help departing OFWs – before they leave the country – to make smarter decision while in the country, instead of doing rehabilitation after they have become victims of human trafficking,” she adds.
Based on experience, she points out it is difficult to rescue victims once they get abroad because of different laws in other countries.
Ople, the first Filipino recipient of the Alumni of the Year 2010 Award by the Harvard Kennedy School of Government, says she thought of a call center after a taxi driver, who was about to pay a recruiter P80,000 as placement for a job in Jeddah (Saudi Arabia), dropped by the center to inquire if the recruiter is legitimate.
“The driver listened to a radio interview where I was a guest and we were talking about bogus recruiters who offer too-good-to-be-true promises. He called the station and we told him to drop by the Ople Center so we can verify with POEA and OWWA if the recruitment agency is legit. Turns out its license has been expired for over a year,” Ople recalls.
The driver then went back to the recruitment agency to warn other applicants. “Imagine this illegal recruitment happening daily nationwide and how many Filipinos can we save from such activity,” says Ople.
This month alone, two Filipino female graduates of the center’s Tulay computer training program became victims of prostitution, when they accepted a job offer from a Singaporean recruiter who allegedly had already victimized a hundred women. The Center and the Supreme Court are presently assisting the distressed OFWs and their families.
“Technology is vital in empowerment,” says Ople, when asked about the center’s best practices. Teaching basic computer skills, such as word processing and Internet use, to returning and distressed OFWs and their dependents spell a big difference in terms of improving poverty threshold.
“By opening the doors to technology, you let them step into the door of a more competitive market. Information technology (IT) is the trend of the times and instead of pushing for a national broadband network project, we could start giving basic computer trainings to Filipinos, especially the out-of-school youth (OSY), we can help a lot,” she says.
Another best practice of the center is the high level of engagement of the staff when helping OFWs. “One thing I learned from my dad (former senator and labor chief Blas Ople) and which I impart in the staff is to be cheerful when helping OFWs because this is our advocacy,” she says.
“I remember my father used to tell me that to understand a person, you must know where they are coming from. Dapat malalim ang pinagkukunan at may pasensiya ka,” she adds.
Blas F. Ople Policy Center is located at 2295 Unit M, Roberts St., Pasay City. For inquiries, call (02) 833-5337 or email blasoplecenter@gmail.com.
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