BI, POEA set up info-sharing system vs tourist workers

MANILA, Philippines - The government is setting up a system to curb the rising number of so-called “tourist workers.”

Labor Secretary Rosalinda Baldoz said the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA) and the Bureau of Immigration (BI) have agreed to develop and implement the information sharing system by August.

The system would be implemented in the country’s different international airports.

With the information sharing system, Baldoz said departing tourist workers and those with fake employment contracts could easily be identified and prevented from leaving the country.

Baldoz and Immigration commissioner Ricardo David Jr. forged a memorandum of agreement last Friday for the implementation of the new system.

Under the agreement, the POEA will make available to the immigration all the data regarding documented overseas Filipino workers and their foreign employers.

POEA chief Hans Cacdac said a technical working group would develop the information sharing system and also propose measures for the arrest of suspected illegal recruiters.

Both the POEA and BI will also conduct periodic study on the trends and modus operandi employed by illegal recruiters and human traffickers.

Immigration officers are currently having difficulty verifying the authenticity of employment documents and identifying tourist workers, according to David.

He said an average of 45,000 tourist workers – or those aspiring Filipino workers posing as tourists – were being offloaded from various international airports and barred from leaving the country annually.

The recruitment industry complained the BI’s indiscriminate offloading of suspected undocumented overseas Filipino workers is driving away foreign employers.

Recruitment leaders said a number of foreign employers are now turning to other nationalities due to many instances of newly hired OFWs unable to arrive in their worksites on time.

Cacdac said a majority of the abused OFWs were illegally recruited women workers who risked going abroad as tourists and ending up abused and maltreated.

With the information sharing system, Baldoz expressed confidence the government can curb the number of undocumented workers and other human trafficking activities in the country.

Baldoz also gave assurance that with the new system, departing OFWs can leave faster since they do not have to check documents with POEA anymore.