DOLE: Labor offices abroad directed to receive complaints on violations of overseas employment rules

Tuesday, August 21, 2007The government has bolstered the protection of overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) by directing the network of Philippine Overseas Labor Offices (POLOs) to receive OFW complaints onsite concerning violations of the country’s rules governing overseas employment.

Labor and Employment Secretary Arturo D. Brion said that Resolution No. 07 issued by the Governing Board of the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA) will effectively provide onsite remedies to OFWs with complaints against their employer or the recruitment agency which deployed them.

“The fact that POLOs, under the new Resolution, will now receive the complaints of OFWs onsite concerning POEA rules and regulations, it reinforces our global protective system considering their presence in more than 30 key locations worldwide with significant OFW populations,” Brion said.

The more than 30 POLOs attending to OFWs worldwide are in Hong Kong, Macau, Tokyo, Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, Brunei Darussalam, Taipei, Kaohsiung, Taichung, Korea, Riyadh, Jeddah, Abu Dhabi, Dubai, Bahrain, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Qatar, Oman, Israel, Jordan, Saipan, Washington, D.C., Canada, Rome, Milan, Geneva, Madrid, Greece, London, and Brussels.

The new resolution was unanimously signed and issued on August 9, 2007 by the POEA Governing Board chaired by Secretary Brion with Gregorio S. Oca, Leonardo De Ocampo, Guillermina T. Gabor, Isidro Q. Aligada, and POEA Administrator Rosalinda D. Baldoz as members.

The Resolution specifically adopted remedial measures such as, the POLOs will recognize complaints and assist onsite OFW complainants in the preparation of affidavits and reception of evidence, which shall be endorsed to the POEA for appropriate action; and, in docketed POEA cases involving complainants or witnesses deployed for overseas work, POLOs will ascertain the facts and information, and then send written questions to the OFW complainant.

Brion said that the POLOs worldwide will continue to reinforce and boost the country’s one country team system geared at assisting our modern-day heroes through “an effective mechanism to ensure that their rights are adequately safeguarded and protected.”

source: Information and Publication Service