DUBAI: Overseas Filipino workers in the UAE want heads to roll at the Philippine Overseas Employees Administration (POEA) over claims by no less than Labor Secretary Silvestre Bello III himself that certain employees of the government agency is making as much as P250,000 conniving with illegal recruiters for the issuance of Overseas Employment Certificates (OEC).
Following his disclosure, Bello ordered a suspension of the OEC issuance from Nov. 13 to Dec. 1 and a probe which has so far yielded 40 security guards and janitors believed to have been acting as runners and bagmen for the syndicate. No ranking official has been named.
“Yung mga officials na napatunayan na nag-corrupt, eh dapat lang na matanggal sa pwesto at mapatungan ng karampatang parusa. Nakakasira sila sa imahe ng pangulo at ng Pilipinas. Dapat wakasan na yang mga ganyang klaseng tao, Wala nang inisip kung hinde pangsarili lang,” said Lon Hipolito, engineer living in Dubai. (Those officials proven to have been engaged in corruption activities must be punished. They tarnish the image of the president and the country. They should go. They only think of themselves).
Rubie Baltazar Evangelista, who works at a multinational energy company, for her part said a wider investigation should be done to cover other corruption-ridden agencies. “Kailangang linisin talaga at baka merong pang natitirang nasa pwesto na mahilig mangurakot sa kaban ng bayan,” she said. (The agencies and departments need to be cleansed as there could still be people in positions digging in on the people’s money.)
Gemma Garme a media practitioner; and Michael Bonuz, who works at a media company, offered: “Abolish OEC as it has become a source of corruption.”
Besides, said Nick Tanyag, “We really don’t know where the OEC payments go, what they are using the money for and how OFWs are benefiting from it. We already pay our membership fees with the Overseas Workers Welfare Administration and I believe that should be sufficient.”
Labor Undersecretary Dominador Say said at a press conference November 21 that the probe involves “a more in-depth top-to-bottom reshuffle and revamp.”
“There will be some officials there (at POEA) who will be removed from their posts,” he said.
