UNITED FILIPINOS in HONG KONG - (UNIFIL-MIGRANTE-HK)

Press Release
18 January 2007
 
For reference:  Dolores Balladares, Chairperson
                 Tel. No.: 97472986, 31562447

POEA training for “supermaids”
Pinay maids in HK declare “war on government extortion”

“We say no to government extortion and this is what the new POEA training scheme is all about.”

This was declared today by Dolores Balladares, chairperson of the militant United Filipinos in Hong Kong, as about 30 Filipino domestic helpers held a protest action in front of the Philippine Consulate General office.

The protesters believed that the new POEA training scheme, contained in several circulars issued since November as well as its Guidelines on the Deployment of Household Service Workers are but “ploys to milk more money from domestic helpers disguised as rights and welfare promotion.”

“Our action today is but the first of a series of protests we are planning to hold. We have started coordination with other organizations here in Hong Kong to rally thousands of domestic helpers against this additional burden to us in the coming weeks. This is our war on extortion,” she added.

Balladares also said that they will coordinate efforts with organizations in other countries such as Taiwan, Korea, Japan, Macau, Canada, Philippines, and countries in Europe to mount an international campaign against the said training scheme.

On January 28, the group said, hundreds of domestic helpers will hold another protest action .

“Hundreds shall become thousands. We shall show this government that we will not take any extortionist policy sitting down. We shall protest in the streets, apply pressure, and lobby sympathetic officials to scrap these new policies. This has got to stop,” she said.

Balladares relayed that reports have reached her group of new and returning OFWs being charged P5,000 to P10,000 to obtain the National Certificate for Household Service Workers from TESDA and the Language and Culture Certificate of Competence from the OWWA.

“We’ve been milking cows of the government for far too long. We are not deep pockets that the government can always dip their dirty hands into and call it protection of our rights,” she stated.

The training, under the POEA’s Pre-Qualification for Household Service Workers scheme, is part of the GMA’s promised “package’ for OFWs which also included the 25 years old age limit for domestic helpers, a US$400 minimum wage, and a no placement fee provision.

“These provisions are mere icings to what is really an income-generating scheme. This government was not even able to implement the former minimum wage provision and the ceiling fee for placement fees that recruiters can charge OFWs. How can it even make true of these new ones?” Balladares added.

Additionally, the group believed that the only reason why the government has found it imperative to implement a training scheme is because of the coming May elections.

“Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo is desperate to cling to power, push her anti people programs such as the spate of extrajudical killings and Charter Change, and put all her people in the right places so that her position will be secured. Her government is not new to plundering money from OFWs as shown in the 2004 elections,” she said.

“We are sick and tired of government exaction. There’ll be no letup in this fight,” she concluded.#

GABRIELA Statement

NEWS RELEASE
17 January 2007
 
Reference: Emmi De Jesus, GABRIELA Secretary General, 09173221203, 3712302
 
On POEA's new guidelines for domestic helpers, caregivers abroad
OFWs, MERE CASH COWS FOR GMA
 
"Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo is the number one recruiter in the Philippines and her neglectful administration is the biggest and most exploitative recruitment agency for desperate Filipino people who are forced to work abroad."

This was according to GABRIELA Secretary General Emmi De Jesus who reacted against the Philippine Overseas Employment Agency's new guidelines for the pre-qualification of Filipino domestic helpers. Under the new guidelines, prospective domestic helpers have to pay as much as Php10,000 more for additional trainings and certificates.

"It appears that GMA is intent on using these additional trainings and certificates to prove to labor-absorbing countries that Filipino women are qualified as "supermaids." For profit, she reduces the Filipino people to mere commodities for sale."
 
De Jesus explains that this is in contrast to the fact that the dollar remittance from around nine million overseas Filipino workers is the administrations' biggest source of foreign exchange. Last year alone, an estimate of 3,000 Filipinos left for work abroad everyday. The over US$10.3 billion they sent back in the first ten months of 2006 is 16.6 percent more than their remittances for the same period of 2005.
 
"With the rate she is milking OFWs, the ingrate Arroyo was able to turn them into non-persons sold to capitalist countries. She cannot discount enough the critical contribution of our OFWs to the Philippine economy."
 
De Jesus pointed out, "GMA goes on boasting that she has created millions of jobs for the people. But GABRIELA knows that the only job she has created are those through micro-financing wherein women still end up in the underground economy selling street food or cigarettes. Instead of approving the legislated wage hike or creating decent-paying jobs in the manufacturing sector, she chooses to spend her efforts in making the people, especially women, marketable commodities."
 
"But GMA is doomed. This issue will surely unite overseas Filipino workers who had to suffer because of her and her administration. Come elections, the families of the cash cows she has unabashedly milked and maltreated will surely avenge themselves by electing officials who can impeach her for her crimes against the people. Then it is GMA's time to fall," De Jesus concluded. ###