Saudi-bound nurses warned on use of bogus documents
ACTS-OFW party-list Rep. Aniceto Bertiz III's warned Kingdom of Saudi Arabia - bound nurses against using spurious diocuments and credentials.
He said that nurses should never submit padded certificates of prior employment, which is a standard requirement for Filipino nurses who want to work overseas.
“In Saudi Arabia alone, we’ve responded to more than 100 requests for assistance from Filipino nurses who were arrested and jailed on charges of tendering fabricated eligibility papers,” said Bertiz.
The misrepresentations were discovered and the nurses were apprehended after several months on the job in Riyadh, Jeddah and Dammam.
“We’ve also had cases of nurses with tampered papers who were either acquitted or deported after paying a stiff fine,” Bertiz said.
Bertiz attributed many of the cases of fraud to crooked Philippine recruitment agencies.
“If the nurse for instance lacks the required duration of occupational experience, the dishonest recruiters themselves will produce the spurious papers, just so they can deploy (the nurse) and make money out of the job placement,” Bertiz said.
“Sasabihin nila sa nurse, ‘Kami na ang bahala dyan’ o kaya ‘Gagawan na lang namin ng paraan yan (They will tell the nurse, 'We'll take care of it' or 'We'll find a way',” he pointed out.)
The University Belt in downtown is notorious for rows of shops and agents openly offering counterfeit, forged or spurious diplomas, licenses, certificates and other documents. Unscrupulous recruitment firms In at least two cases reported to ACTSOFW, the jailed nurses claimed that their recruiters instructed them to submit the fake documents and even facilitated the acquisition of the bogus papers, according to House Resolution (HR) 1118.
Bertiz filed the resolution to enable a congressional inquiry into the proliferation of forged credentials to comply with the requirements of foreign employers.
“Recruiters are supposed to validate the papers of job applicants, and not facilitate fraud,” the Minority bloc congressman stressed.
He said the Saudi Labor Ministry can be rigorous in factchecking the qualifications of highly skilled professionals such as doctors, nurses and engineers.
Bertiz said ACTSOFW has been working closely with the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) to find ways to resolve the cases of the nurses behind bars.