DFA: Online recruitment of OFWs to Iraq difficult to monitor

MANILA, Philippines – Most transactions to recruit overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) to Iraq are done on the Internet, making it difficult for government agencies to monitor such recruitment, the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) said.

Assistant Secretary Jesus Yabes of the DFA Office of Middle East and African Affairs (OMEAA) admitted that “although we have a present ban, this does not prevent OFWs from going to Iraq.”

“Most Filipinos are recruited elsewhere and not in the Philippines, then brought to Iraq. Many transactions are done on the Internet and this is very difficult to monitor,” Yabes said.

Charge d’Affaires Falih Al-Assadi of the Iraqi Embassy in Manila said he hopes that the government will lift the travel ban because Filipino professionals are welcome to work in Iraq.

“Definitely we are open. We are open and have huge market. Due to friendly relations with the Philippines, we welcome Filipino professionals to work in Iraq,” Al-Assadi said.

The government has stamped Philippine passports with a ban to “travel to Iraq,” following the abduction in 2004 of Filipino truck driver Angelo de la Cruz who was subsequently released after the alleged payment of ransom and pull out of the Philippine contingent serving with the US coalition.

In August 2007, Vice President Noli De Castro asked the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) and the DFA to look for 51 Filipino workers who were allegedly smuggled into Iraq despite the government’s deployment ban and immediately repatriate them to the Philippines.

De Castro said the Filipino workers were taken to Iraq illegally to work on the construction of the US Embassy in Baghdad.

He said that the escort services at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA) allegedly involving some employees of the Bureau of Immigration (BI) would be investigated.

Illegal recruiters allegedly use the escort services in their operation to deploy Filipino workers, he said.

The US Embassy in Manila was “mum” on the testimony of Rorry Mayberry, a medical technician who worked for a Kuwaiti firm in Iraq, before a US congressional hearing last year on the reported smuggling of Filipino workers to Iraq.

Mayberry said he learned that he would escort 51 Filipinos after the First Kuwaiti managers gave him his flight information to Baghdad.

He said that he wanted to help the Filipinos on the same flight to Baghdad and make sure that they got on the flight just as his managers had asked him.

But upon arrival at the Kuwait airport, Mayberry said he noticed that all the Filipinos’ tickets indicated that they were going to Dubai.

A First Kuwaiti manager told Mayberry that Philippine passports do not allow Filipinos to go to Iraq, and so they need to be marked as going to Dubai.

Mayberry later found out that the Filipinos had no idea they were going to Baghdad and they were smuggled into the Green Zone.

Foreign Affairs Secretary Alberto Romulo directed Philippine ambassadors to countries neighboring Iraq to intensify cooperation with their host governments to enforce the ban. – Pia Lee Brago