Labor Attache Atty. Felicitas Bay of the Philippine Overseas Labor Office in Dubai (POLO Dubai) stated that their office is aware of the requests of Filipinos in the UAE to publicize names of recipients of the Department of Labor and Employment’s Abot Kamay ang Pagtulong (DOLE-AKAP) Program.
“There’s a comment that we received na bakit daw hindi gayahin yung sa DSWD sa SAP beneficiary. That is very good because we have nothing to hide here. Everything is on record, we have nothing to hide. We have a daily submission to Manila,” said Labor Attache Bay during the Kumustahang Namamahay online discussion headed by spearheaded by Kalayaan 2020 Chair Jason Bucton.
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However, she explained that DOLE has yet to provide any directives or instructions regarding the suggestion: “I already received an email on that I think two weeks ago, I forwarded to the Philippines. I forwarded that to our Director of International Labor Affairs Bureau. Now absent any directives from our main office, then we cannot publish,” explained Bay.
The Labor Attache then furthered that one of the possible reasons behind the nondisclosure of names at present is for the privacy of the individuals who have received the financial aid, which she then compared to asking for permission when POLO Dubai publishes photos of recipients of the cash assistance.
“Isa pa rin sa nakikita ko, it’s the privacy of the individual. In fact doon sa POLO, when we take pictures, we ask the individual – pwede ka ba naming kunan ng picture. Kapag sinabi niyang ‘hindi po, pasensya na po’ – hindi natin kinukunan. Sinasabi noong ating kababayan: ‘Mam okay lang po na i-post ang aking pasasalamat pero wag na pong ipakita ang aking pangalan’. Ginagalang natin yung mga ganyan. Even on taking pictures, we are very careful on taking pictures for putting anything on Facebook. Pag hindi kami nagpaalam, unless it’s public na tinag din kami or pinadala sa amin, we don’t post anything,” said Bay.
READ ON: POLO Dubai reports 79,800 applications received for DOLE-AKAP program
Data from the POLO Dubai reveal that they have received a total of 79,800 applications, of which 26,752 have been evaluated. Of this number 9,691 have been approved of which 6,924 overseas Filipinos have already claimed their one-time financial assistance from the government.
