DFA: LGUs accountable for people they deploy
The Department of Migrant Workers on Tuesday assured that local government units would be held accountable if their constituents deployed as seasonal workers in countries like South Korea suffer abuse from their employers.
DMW Undersecretary Patricia Yvonne Caunan told DAILY TRIBUNE’s digital show Usapang OFW that she received complaints about some of the people deployed by LGUs being forced to pay a “broker’s fee” of P20,000 to P50,000.
Caunan said the collection of such a fee for short-term employment is illegal.
“Beginning this year, the DMW imposed a moratorium on the deployment of seasonal workers for the DMW to have a chance to craft guidelines to protect the workers,” she said.
She added: “Brokers fees are prohibited under our laws and the government of Korea. Only fees for processing fees of passports and medical examinations, among others, are being shouldered by seasonal workers programs.”
Caunan added that the main purpose of the LGU-to-LGU or sisterhood agreement between South Korea and the Philippines is to share cultural, knowledge, and experience exchanges and provide workers with the opportunity to work in South Korea for five months.
“Since the seasonal workers program is now under DMW, we have already crafted mechanisms to protect our seasonal workers. But we are still in the interim stage. This means that DMW guidelines are now stated in the programs’ contracts to protect our workers further. But the thing is, not all LGUs can participate in the program,” she said.
“Since it’s an LGU-to-LGU program, we are requiring LGUs to have notarized undertakings stating their responsibilities and accountabilities. Those include monitoring the workers and ensuring that workers will not pay any unauthorized fees, including brokers’ fees. Governors and Mayors should sign,” she noted.
Caunan said that since the DMW has lifted the moratorium, 70 seasonal workers are getting ready to go to South Korean farms, while the first batch of 39 workers from Pampanga left on 29 February.