Bataan mayor sees job prospects for Pinoy laborers in Guam

BALANGA CITY, Bataan – The looming relocation plan by American authorities to transfer its facilities from Okinawa, Japan to the Island of Guam starting next year would create a big demand for local skilled construction workers.

City Mayor Jose Enrique “Joet” Garcia III yesterday said during his Barangay Week affair held in Poblacion that some 20,000 highly-skilled Filipino construction workers are needed in the Island of Guam with the relocation of some 8,000 American servicemen and their families from the American Naval Base in Okinawa, Japan starting next year.

Garcia told The STAR that the newly installed officers of the Bataan Association of Guam led by its president Arsenio Santiago have informed him and his father Bataan Gov. Enrique “Tet” Garcia Jr. who flew to Agana, Guam to induct the officers and guest speaker of the 11th year anniversary, respectively about the expected construction boom which is reportedly budgeted at $15 billion worth to be spent between 2009 to 2014.

Various Filipino communities in Guam and the American authorities have endorsed the hiring of Filipino construction workers with their excellent performance and good working relations with the local inhabitants in the past.

Garcia said about 200 Bataeños, most of them professionals who have lived in the American island territory are working for stronger relationship between two historical islands of Guam and Bataan and to foster cultural and educational exchange and to hasten socio-economic ties.

Garcia said that Guam Gov. Felix Camacho is expected to visit Bataan in two months time for the formal signing of a sisterhood agreement and for closer cultural and economic cooperation between Bataan and Guam. – Raffy Viray