Gov’t urged, deploy more labor officers

MANILA, Philippines — A Filipino migrant rights group on Wednesday called on the Philippine government to deploy more welfare officers who could efficiently attend on various cases of overseas Filipino workers (OFWs), particularly in Saudi Arabia and in other mideast countries where cases reported daily averaged from seven to 10 cases.

“We are calling the government of President Benigno Aquino III to look into our long standing request to deploy additional welfare officers who could attend the numerous welfare cases of distress and run away OFWs,” said John Leonard Monterona, Migrante-Middle East regional coordinator, in a statement.

Monterona said the present number of welfare officers in Saudi Arabia, in particular, are not enough compared to the cases reported daily averaging from seven to 10 cases Migrante chapters have been receiving, aside from the cases directly reported to POLO-OWWA and the Philippine embassy’s Assistance to the Nationals Section (ANS).

Monterona said the Overseas Workers Welfare Administration (OWWA) office in Riyadh has only 4 welfare officers and 6 locally hired interpreters. There are currently around 500,000 deployed OFWs in Saudi’s central region.

“The bulk of the cases we receive daily are from the central region of Saudi Arabia, this includes Riyadh, Saudi’s capital city, Buraydah, Gassim, Hail City; and yet there are only three OWWA on-site welfare officers supported by local hire interpreters,” Monterona pointed out.

Monterona said that although there are locally hired interpreters, their jobs are limited only to providing translation during case hearings at the labor court or other Saudi agencies.

“In the Eastern region of Saudi Arabia covering Dammam, Al Khobar, Al-Hasa, and Jubail, there are about 350,000 OFWs, and yet there is only one welfare officer deployed by OWWA, providing support to him are two administrative staff and four local hire interpreters,” Monterona said.

Monterona said if there are five or seven hearings a day and urgent request for assistance from distressd OFWs from different locations, “we could not expect that POLO-OWWA staff could attend all these cases.”

“The lack of staff attending welfare cases from POLO-OWWA and the Assistance to the Nationals section of the Philippine Embassy in Saudi Arabia in relation to the huge numbers of OFWs deployed, compromises the rights of OFWs,” Monterona added.  –ROY C. MABASA, Manila bulletin