OFWs defy ban for high pay in Afghanistan

COMPENSATION at least four times bigger than that offered in the Middle East is enticing Filipinos to work in forward operating bases of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) in Afghanistan despite the dangers and the ban on deploying them to the war-torn country.

The dangers were highlighted by the death of 10 Filipino workers when the helicopter they were riding burst into flames and crashed moments after taking off at a runway in the city of Kandahar on July 19.

The 10 overseas Filipino workers (OFWs), recruited in the Philippines and the Middle East, were to be deployed for work in the town of Spin Buldak, near the Pakistani border, which hosts a forward operating base manned by Canadian troops.

The Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) identified the fatalities as Marvin Najera, Celso Caralde, Ely Cariño, Ernesto de Vega, Manolito Hornilla, Leopoldo Jimenez Jr., Noli Visda, Mark Joseph Mariano, Rene Taboclaon and Recardo Vallejos.

The badly burned bodies were taken to Kuwait and a laboratory in Maryland, United States subjected samples to further identification via DNA testing. Only two – Jimenez and Hornilla – have been identified; their remains arrived in the Philippines on August 11.

The Philippine government was quick to reiterate its two-year-old ban on the deployment of Filipino workers to Afghanistan, but migrant workers and recruitment groups said the ban had been a failure.

Labor Secretary Marianito Roque said the ban would remain in place and would continue to be enforced. He urged aspiring OFWs to seek employment in other countries through the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA) and licensed recruitment agencies.

There are about 1,500 Filipino workers in Afghanistan, 500 in the capital Kabul and 1,000 in the southern part of the country, said Vice President Noli de Castro, also the presidential adviser for OFWs and chair of the interagency Task Force Against Illegal Recruitment (TFAIR).

De Castro said OFWs must be prevented from going to Afghanistan because it was still unsafe for Filipino workers.

Aside from the Filipino fatalities, six people were killed and five others were injured in the crash of an MI-8 chopper, owned by the Russian firm Vertikal-1.

There were no indications that the crash was caused by hostile fire, according to US military officials.

Texas-based employer

An investigation by the POEA and the Overseas Workers Welfare Administration (Owwa), both agencies of the Department of Labor and Employment (Dole), found that the Filipino workers were employed by the Texas-based Fluor Corp., an engineering and construction firm that obtained several huge contracts with the US military in Afghanistan.

But the company that recruited the Filipino workers was AIM Group Inc., also a Texas-based firm, which, according to Roque and De Castro, had apparently got hold of the recruits through “subagents,” some of them Filipinos, who were sent to scout for workers in the Philippines.

Roque said the recruiters of the 10 Filipinos acted individually so as not to attract the attention of authorities in the Philippines. One of the two subagents looked for prospective workers in Central Luzon.

“When a potential recruit is found, he would be asked if he knows another one who is qualified. The recruiter would then refer and fly them to Dubai, where an accomplice would process hiring papers,” he said.

Two of the fatalities had worked in Iraq and were directly recruited in Dubai, according to a TFAIR initial investigation.

Recruiters

De Castro said TFAIR was looking for Jake de la Cruz, one of the two male recruiters in the country. The task force also has identified Lourdes Kabigting as the recruiter in Dubai who processed the OFWs’ papers.

He said he had asked the labor department to make proper representations with UAE authorities to make the recruiters accountable.

On July 14, TFAIR agents at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport intercepted 11 Filipinos bound for Dubai who admitted they were to be deployed to Afghanistan. Immigration authorities were alerted because the passports of some of the workers showed that they had worked in Afghanistan.

The TFAIR found that the workers’ travel documents were facilitated by Faisal Ahmad Muhammad Alamri, who reportedly owns Sara Tourism and Cargo, a firm in Dubai.

‘Bahala na’

Emmanuel Geslani, a consultant for several Manila-based recruitment agencies, said the government would remain “powerless” to enforce the ban, especially because the 10 OFWs did not die from a terror or insurgent attack but from an accident.

“The construction activities in Afghanistan continue to attract OFWs because of the high pay and insurance benefits. With the generous compensation, OFWs are willing to risk their life and limb to work there so that they could give their families back home a better life,” he said.

He said he agreed with the observation that Filipinos seem to think they were “invincible.” Geslani attributed this view to the “bahala na” (come what may) attitude of Filipinos.

“Who would not want to defy the risk and go to Afghanistan, where a janitor can earn up to $800 a month, compared with only $200 in the UAE? A semiskilled worker can earn at least $1,200 there compared with only $300 in the rest of the region. A manager or supervisor earns much, much more,” he said.

Unaware of conflict

It was found that some OFWs themselves lacked adequate information on the real situation in Afghanistan.

“We haven’t heard about any conflict there,” said Margarita Hornilla, whose husband Manolito was among the fatalities. She and other grieving families of the 10 OFWs were brought to the Owwa Center in Pasay by De Castro on July 22.

She said Manolito, who had worked for three years in Iraq, was recruited in Dubai and brought to Afghanistan on July 1 to work as a carpenter with a monthly salary of $1,200. Manolito left six children, three of whom were in college.

On July 23, Owwa repatriated four OFWs in Afghanistan, including Najera’s father Eduardo and Mariano’s uncle Ronald de la Cruz. “We took the risk of going to Afghanistan because of the high pay,” De la Cruz said. He decided to go home because he could not yet land a job despite his recruiter’s promise.

Eduardo was remorse-stricken at having brought his son to Iraq. He said he and his son were also lured by the high pay and so took the risk of going to Afghanistan even if they knew of the ban.

US-base insurance act

Geslani said that even if the 10 Filipino fatalities were undocumented in the eyes of the Philippine government, their families would receive at least $30,000 each in insurance benefits in compliance with the US Base Insurance Act covering civilians working in high-risk defense contracts.

The ban on the deployment of OFWs to Afghanistan was imposed by the POEA in December 2007, citing the continuing strife that has engulfed the Central Asian country following the invasion by a US-led multinational force.

The government maintains a similar ban in four other countries – Iraq, Nigeria, Lebanon and Jordan.

Jumping points

Despite the ban, recruiters can easily send Filipino workers to Afghanistan, Iraq or Lebanon by using “jumping points,” Geslani said.

“Recruits from the Philippines would not go to Afghanistan directly but fly as tourists first to Bangkok or Hong Kong, from where they could take flights to Afghanistan. Middle Eastern cities such as Kuwait and Dubai in UAE have also become ‘recruitment hubs’ for OFWs in the region whose contracts have expired and are looking for a new job,” he said.

He said there were also allegations in the recruitment industry about rampant “escort services” at the Manila and Cebu international airports, where immigration and airport officers in cahoots with illegal recruiters help “tourist workers” slip out of the Philippines.

“(I)n the long run, the government cannot really set stringent measures that would violate or hamper citizens’ right to travel. And the government here and the government in Afghanistan cannot just close all their borders,” he said.

He said the government was in a better position to protect workers who were already in the four countries before the ban was imposed – as well as those who went there illegally later – if they were documented and their stay legitimized.

“The government, however, remains adamant in implementing the ban. Thus, we have no embassy or labor office there to even look after the OFWs, who are entitled to protection even if they are undocumented,” he said.

Area-specific ban

Foreign firms, however, have not stopped their lobbying. In February, a Colorado-based firm Global Procurement Consulting LLC, wrote the Dole, the DFA and Malacañang and suggested the modification of the ban to make it “area-specific.”

The ban, according to Global’s proposal, could be lifted by the Philippine government only for the military installations in Afghanistan where the Filipino recruits would be confined.

Global was looking for 2,000 cooks, waiters, cashiers, utility workers, maintenance crew and other administrative staff for Supreme Foodservice, a Swiss firm catering to the needs of US and European troops stationed in Kandahar. Supreme offered monthly tax-free salaries ranging from $385 for a general assistant to $700 for a head cook.

Bonus, free plane tickets

Benefits include a $1,200-annual bonus, free roundtrip airfare for every six months and 21 days paid leave. Food, lodging, uniforms, laundry, medical consultations and medicines are provided free of charge. Death benefits amount to three times the annual salary of the worker.

Nothing, however, came out of Global’s proposal. Roque said that as long as the peace and order situation in Afghanistan, Iraq, Lebanon and Nigeria remained unstable, the ban would be maintained.

He said the decision was consistent with Section 5 of Republic Act No. 8042, the Migrant Workers and Overseas Filipinos Act of 1995, which authorizes the government to terminate or impose a ban “in pursuit of the national interest or when public welfare so requires.”

Critics of President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo lamented that Filipinos were forced to work in dangerous areas like Afghanistan to make a living because the government back home had failed to generate jobs. –Jerome Aning, Philippine Daily Inquirer