The Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) and the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA) released the names of several private recruitment agencies (PRAs) found guilty of recruitment violations with corresponding penalties.
It can be recalled that late last year, Labor Secretary Silvestre Bello III revealed that some employees of POEA earn as much as a quarter of a million or P250,000 by conniving with illegal recruiters for the issuance of overseas employment certificates (OECs). This prompted Bello to conduct an investigation into the alleged anomaly and initially suspended the OEC issuance for 15 working days, from November 13- December 1, to prevent what he claimed existing corruption in the agency.
After a fact-finding investigation, DOLE and POEA released today, Feb, 21, names of POEA officials who connive and/or took anomalous actions in the agency.
The list of names of the said POEA officials includes the following:
- Florence Medina – LEO III and evaluator
- Jerome Sousa – Administrative aide BM cum evaluator (service contractual)
- Gretchen C. Casilang – LEO II and evaluator
- Renegold Macarulay – Supervising Labor and Employment Officer
- Rosalina Rosales – LEO III/Evaluator
Meanwhile, POEA Administrator Bernard Olalia said that additional list of illegal recruitment agencies in the country will be named in the following days.
The list of PRAs with recruitment licenses cancelled today by POEA includes the following:
- Al-Bayan International Manpower Services Co – cancellation of license
- Bumiputra Gulf Company Inc. – cancellation of license
- Gold Fortune Human Resources Corp. – cancellation of license
- LFC International Human Resources – cancellation of license
- Aisis International Manpower Inc – cancellation of license
- Greatworld International Management Incorporated – cancellation of license
- Global Gate International Manpower Services Inc. – cancellation of license
- MMML Recruitment Services, Inc. – cancellation of license
- NRS Placement Inc. – 4 months suspension of license
- Sml Human Resources Incorporated – cancellation of license
- Best Migrant Workers International Manpower Services, Incorporated – cancellation of license
Bello told The Filipino Times that they will continue to probe some 50 recruitment agencies to weed out fly-by-night operators.
“Isang paraan na kasama dyan, ay yung rescreening of about 50 recruitment agencies. Merong mga agencies na minsan nagba-branch out pero isang tao lang may hawak – sila yung mga fly-by-night. So we will have a new assessment and verification processing of all agencies,” Bello said.
