HB 387 further exacerbates labor export

Gabriela Women's Party Rep. Luz Ilagan criticized House Bill 387, also known as the OFW Liberalization Act of 2007, saying that it exacerbates further Arroyo's labor export program by making it a permanent policy.
 
“The government wants to intensify its efforts in exporting our people instead of generating domestic employment in the economy. With HB 387, government will let go all pretensions with regard to the protection and promotion of the rights of overseas Filipino workers,” Ilagan said.
 
HB 387, An Act Liberalizing and Accelerating the Processing and Deployment of Overseas Filipino Workers, and Appropriating the Necessary Funds, was approved by the House committees on overseas workers affairs and on appropriations on second reading.
 
The Gabriela solon noted the dire possibility that illegal recruitment and its accompanying malpractices that are detrimental to OFWs will eventually be just institutionalized when HB 387 becomes a law especially in the collection of exorbitant placement fees by the recruitment agencies which the government through the Philippine Overseas Employment Agency has failed to regulate.
 
"The government will not only have the mandate to accelerate the deployment of Filipinos abroad even to dangerous countries, but it will lay the fertile ground for the mushrooming of recruitment agencies who prey on hapless migrant workers,” Ilagan said.
 
"The Philippine government has long lost its credibility to assure the people of its sincerity to protect the welfare of the OFWs. The Arroyo regime, through this bill, will push OFWs into the quagmire of unbridled exploitation," Ilagan stressed. #