Drug test for OFWs unnecessary — consultant

MANILA, Philippines — A recruitment industry consultant labeled as “an additional and unnecessary expense” a proposal by director general Dionisio Santiago of the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency to require prospective overseas Filipino workers to undergo mandatory drug testing.

Emmanuel Geslani, a consultant of several Manila-based recruitment agencies, said applicants for overseas jobs were required to undergo medical exams as part of the selection process by recruitment agencies.

“Some of these exams for different job sites are already quite prohibitive on the part of the worker. Adding one more test like that of drug testing will impose additional burden on the aspiring worker for an overseas job,” added Geslani, who has been in the recruitment industry for more than 30 years as a recruiter and consultant.

Geslani, however, welcomed the module on drug-awareness and modus operandi of drug traffickers that Santiago and Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA) chief Jennifer Manalili wanted to add to the pre-departure and pre-employment orientation seminars of out-bound OFWs.

“At least, the module will warn and inform departing OFWs on the dangers of being used as an illegal drug courier,” the consultant said.

The two agencies are finalizing the module and other guidelines following reports that international drug syndicates have been recruiting OFWs to knowingly or unwittingly carry illegal drug packages.

However, Geslani added that most of the Filipino “drug couriers” arrested abroad, especially in China, were not OFWs but tourists who were recruited by the syndicates to carry drugs inside their bodies.

Geslani added that the drug tests would also be redundant for some OFWs whose job sites included a mandatory drug test as part of their medical examinations. This, he said, has been the rule in Canada, the United States, and European Union countries.

In the Middle East, on the other hand, Geslani said accredited clinics in the Philippines that have been exclusively processing workers bound for Gulf Cooperation Council member-states such as Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Oman and soon Qatar could declare workers with diseases “unfit.”

The clinics might be asked to add drug-testing in their medical exam coverage, he added. –Jerome Aning, Philippine Daily Inquirer