POEA asked to halt deployment to South Korea

A recruitment and migration expert has called on the government to halt the deployment of Filipinos to South Korea in the wake of a North Korean military attack there that killed 4 people.

A recruitment industry spokesman Emmanuel S. Geslani urged the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA), which screens workers to Korea, to temporarily stop deployment amid the escalating tension there.

Together with the United States, South Korea announced it will proceed with a naval war game in the coming days. This actually triggered the North to launch an artillery attack on Tuesday.

“The heightened tension now prevailing over the Korean peninsula should be a matter of grave concern for Philippine labor officials and the Department of Foreign Affairs since there are over 60,000 Filipinos in South Korea some 10,000 of them are undocumented,” Geslani said.

Private recruitment agencies have been stripped of the task of deploying workers to South Korea since 2005.

Through the so-called Employment Placement System (EPS), the POEA already undertakes a government-to-government deployment of skilled and unskilled workers for factories and small business enterprises for South Korean businessmen.

Under the system, about 10,000 job opportunities are offered to Filipinos every year.

The system has attracted many Filipinos since its inception because of a no-placement fee rule.

Nonetheless, applicants will have to spend some P50,000 to cover other fees such as POEA processing, $25 contribution to the Overseas
Workers Welfare Administration, Visa fees, airline fares, testing fees, etc.

The worker should also take a Korean language training to ensure his or her competitiveness.

This has hampered the POEA from filling in all 10,000 jobs, Geslani noted. In fact, only about 6,000 are deployed every year, he added.

He noted the EPS has been temporarily halted in 2008 due to voluntary resignations. Workers have complained of salary disputes, misunderstandings due to lack of Korean language, delayed salary payments, among others.


Source:
ABS-CBN