From the News! – Your Daily News

Cecil Morella
Agence France-Presse

Filed Under: World Financial Crisis, Labor, Economy and Business and Finance, Overseas Employment, Economic Indicators

ANGONO, Philippines — Americans were already defaulting on home payments when Gertrudes Capili mortgaged her modest farm near Manila to help send her two granddaughters to Taiwan.

There they worked in a factory making microchips for appliances sold to an American consumer market on the verge of collapse.

Little did the 90-year-old grandmother know that the US subprime meltdown and subsequent financial crisis would come home to roost in Angono, a lakeshore town east of Manila where she lives with a daughter and two granddaughters in a cramped 34-square-meter (366-square-foot) plywood and sheet iron home.

A nearby river often overflows and floods the ground floor in the rain, and the warped furniture, bought with the granddaughters earnings, has to be replaced every year.

“Huge debts and a splitting headache,” 24 year-old Bernadette Cortas told AFP when asked what she earned from her stint at the ASE semiconductor factory near Taipei, which serves electronics giants such as Motorola and Epson.

Both she and her cousin Cristina de Borja now wear horn-rimmed glasses, the result of working long hours in front of tiny circuit boards.

Just eight months after the cousins got their jobs, which netted them about 20,000 Taiwan dollars ($600) a month after food and lodging expenses, they were shipped back home along with 103 other Filipinos as the company cut staff amid plunging global electronics demand.

Cortas would be an apt poster child of the Philippines economic diaspora.

Once a giggly, leggy teenage schoolgirl, she is now a college dropout who had worked in a fast food restaurant to put herself through high school.

The oldest of five children of an unemployed bus driver who lives with another woman, Cortas single-handedly fed, housed and put her siblings through school.

Her mother works as a maid in Saudi Arabia but has a new boyfriend and no longer gives money to the family, Cortas said. When she (Cortas) lost her job the siblings also had to quit school.

Jobless, penniless and deep in debt, she is staring down a bleak Christmas, unable to pay back the P50,000- ($1,048-) loan she and de Borja had secured with grandma’s 2,000-square-meter (21,500-square-foot) farm as collateral.

The loan only covered part of their “job placement fees” of P85,000 ($1,782) each which was mainly paid for by commercial money lenders that charge interest rates of 2.0 percent a month.

Cortas does not even have money to go home to Rosario town south of Manila for Christmas and is temporarily staying at her grandmother’s.

Their desperation has seen them line up overnight outside a Manila television station last weekend for a game show that offered a house and a million pesos in prizes.

Both missed out because “they appeared to favor domestic helpers,” de Borja said.

The cousins are just two among some eight million Filipinos — 10 percent of the population — who have joined an economic diaspora.

The government says several hundred “overseas Filipino workers” have lost their jobs due to the global crisis, which the International Labor Organization has warned could see as many as 20 million people put out of work by the end of 2009.

The two cousins have filed a suit to get a refund of part of their placement fee, which had guaranteed them contracts for two years in Taiwan.

While no one can be jailed in the Philippines for failing to pay a debt, they need to repay the loans to avoid becoming blacklisted by labor recruiters.

De Borja, 30, a former Manila pharmaceutical company worker, said a job in the Philippines is not appealing because of the low pay.

Two in five Filipinos live on two dollars or less a day and a third of the labour force is either out of work or underemployed at any one time.

De Borja said she has pawned or sold most of her jewellery to try and pare down debts.

The Taiwan job helped tide things over before the subprime crisis blew up early this year. They worked seven days a week and padded their wages with overtime.

But the factory stopped the extra shifts in June, and by September as electronics demand plummeted, their take-home pay was down to about 2,000 Taiwan dollars a month.

De Borja’s younger sister has since left for Dubai to work as a shopping mall clerk.

President Gloria Arroyo received the laid-off chip workers at Malacanang palace three days after they flew home on December 2, but real help was not forthcoming.

“It was obvious that her smile was faked. It was plastered on her mug,” de Borja said.

“Plastic,” Cortas agreed.

Philippine Star

President Arroyo described yesterday layoffs among overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) as “only a trickle” as she unveiled a package of programs to assist displaced workers.

Speaking at Malacañang before some 100 Filipinos who recently lost their jobs in Taiwan, the President stressed that the government is addressing its concerns for OFWs, particularly those who lost their jobs because of the current global financial crisis.

“The government, even if it is only a trickle of our Filipino work force coming back, will not sit idly and do nothing for our modern day heroes in this time of economic uncertainty,” she said.

The Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) said around 1,200 Filipinos, mostly factory workers in Taiwan, lost their jobs and were forced to return home.

One hundred two of the workers were brought to the Palace yesterday to receive an initial assistance package from the government to help them get back on their feet.

Inside woven baskets handed out by the President were Philhealth membership cards, referral letters from the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration, OFW Family Club cards from the Social Security System, referrals from the Bureau of Local Employment for those who wish to work in the Philippines and a pledge of commitment from the Technical Education and Skills Development Authority to provide free training on skills most needed at this time.

The President said that livelihood fund checks would also be issued soon by the Overseas Workers Welfare Administration (OWWA) for displaced workers who opt to start a small business or other entrepreneurial activities at home.

During yesterday’s ceremony, the President also handed out checks for the displaced OFWs residing in Cavite (P150,000); Visayas and Mindanao (P110,000); Laguna, P70,000; and Pampanga (P160,000).

The President noted that the checks were given to pay for the materials of the Technology Resource Center of the Department of Science and Technology which, under its mandate, is a facilitator in the utilization and active exchange of ideas, information and technology to help create new jobs and livelihood opportunities as well as develop small and medium-sized businesses.

Labor Secretary Marianito Roque pointed out that a total of P250 million has been made available by the various agencies of the government as a Filipino expatriate livelihood support fund.

The funds were sourced from the DOLE, OWWA, the national government and other government agencies.

Displaced OFWs could avail of loans sourced from the fund to start up their own small and medium enterprises.

The President also issued a number of directives aimed at helping the affected OFWs.

The DOLE and OWWA were directed to coordinate and identify the sectors where there is demand for the services of the displaced workers.

Mrs. Arroyo promised to create more good-paying jobs in the country while assuring the displaced workers that the government continuously searches for new markets overseas.

The President noted that 1,000 new jobs have opened up in Bulgaria in the hotel and restaurant sectors.

The President also announced that she has signed an administrative order directing the POEA to conduct a marketing blitz overseas so that the market for the OFWs would be expanded.

Mrs. Arroyo assured the displaced workers that the government will not be remiss in its mandate of helping OFWs who are in distress or in need.

“Our government will not neglect our new heroes, especially at this time of economic uncertainty. We assure you of our full and unequivocal support,” the President said in Filipino.

Influx of OFWs

Meanwhile, the country’s largest labor group warned of a looming influx of displaced OFWs in the coming weeks due to the global economic crisis.

The Trade Union Congress of the Philippines (TUCP) said the country may soon experience “reverse migration” wherein thousands of retrenched workers would return home daily.

“The risk of more OFWs getting squeezed in the job markets abroad and forced to come home definitely increases every extra quarter that the world’s major economies stay in recession mode,” TUCP secretary general Ernesto Herrera.

Herrera said the DOLE’s initial reports of displaced workers appeared to be “understated” because it does not include those whose contracts were not renewed. “As the crisis deepens, more foreign employers would simply not renew job contracts that expire,” Herrera pointed out.

“This is a form of silent retrenchment. Because if we talk of stable manufacturing and service jobs (as opposed to time-bound projects such as construction activities), foreign employers would normally renew job contacts upon expiry, as long as the business concern remains viable,” he added.

DOLE earlier reported that about 1,600 OFWs employed in Taiwan, Macau in China, Italy, and other countries abroad have already been displaced as a result the global economic crisis.

To help the displaced workers, Herrera called on the government to provide employment booths in the country’s different ports of entry.

“It is possible that some of the skills of the returning OFWs may be quickly matched with the requirements of a number of local firms. This way, the potential economic dislocation and severance of income is minimized,” he said.

– Marvin Sy, Mayen Jaymalin

Ma. Elisa P. Osorio
Philippine Star

Taiwan still has strong demand for Filipino workers despite the recent layoff of 1,263 overseas Filipino workers (OFWs), the government said.

“There still are employment opportunities. We are working closely with the Taiwan authorities to ensure that these opportunities remain open and are hopefully expanded, so that we can at least mitigate the dislocation caused by the slowdown in the exports sector,” Manila Economic Cultural Office (MECO) Resident Representative Antonio I. Basilio said.

In November alone, new hirings totaled 1,716 as againts the layoff of 1,263 workers from November through December.

In fact, statistics showed that in the first three quarters alone, the country has already exceeded its 10-percent growth target. From January to September, job placements in Taiwan grew by 26 percent.

Currently, an estimated 90,000 Filipinos work in Taiwan, of which about two-thirds are employed as factory workers.

Basilio said that the country continues to deploy new workers to Taiwan in industries which have not been as affected by the global crisis. These include household service workers, caretakers, fishermen, construction workers, and professionals.

“Taiwan will launch a new giant economic stimulus project, worth nearly NT$500 billion (about $15 billion), to reinvigorate the domestic economy.

The budget will include NT$82.9 billion in shopping vouchers to Taiwanese citizens but will mainly go to infrastructure projects, urban renewal, industry upgrading and incentives to investors,” Basilio noted.

“We have?asked the Taiwanese authorities to give priority to the rehiring of Filipino workers for these new projects. Likewise, the influx of tourists from Mainland China as a result of the opening of direct flights is also expected to boost the local economy,” he added.

Likewise, MECO is seeking a greater share of employment opportunities for OFWs to be offered under a giant economic stimulus package being readied by the Taiwanese government.

In a report dated Dec. 2, Rodolfo M. Sabulao, DOLE Representative and MECO director for labor affairs said that 18 Taiwanese companies affected by the crisis were forced to let OFWs after they scaled back or even shut down their operations.

He noted that most of the companies were either in the electronics or textile sectors whose major markets are the US and other countries affected by the crisis.

“The (Taiwanese) companies which have shut down their operations have been very supportive of their workers’ plight, which have made negotiations with them on behalf of our workers faster,” Sabulao said.

Christine Avendaño
Philippine Daily Inquirer

MANILA, Philippines—Saying 2009 could be a “perilous” year, Senator Edgardo Angara said on Wednesday that close to 60,000 Filipinos could lose their jobs abroad, mostly from the United States, due to the global recession.

“If not handled correctly, the financial crisis we see today will become tomorrow’s human crisis,” Angara said in his sponsorship speech for the proposed 2009 appropriations of several government agencies at the resumption of the Senate marathon hearings for the P1.4 trillion national budget for 2009.

Angara said that 590,000 of the 5.1 million overseas Filipino workers were “at risk of losing their jobs.”

These include 129,000 in the US under temporary working visas, particularly those in hotels, casinos as well as agricultural workers; 48,000 seafarers in cruise ships; 268,000 factory workers in South Korea, Taiwan and Macau; 130,000 household service workers in Singapore, Macau and Hong Kong, according to the senator, chair of the Senate finance committee.

“Of this number, 50,000 to 100,00 are losing their jobs now,” he said.

Angara said the shifting of the government’s spending priorities in the proposed 2009 budget “sends a clear signal that we are girding for a coming storm.”

The government is targeting its 2009 spending at basic infrastructure, education and health, housing and environment.

The best way to create jobs and stimulate consumption, especially in rural areas, would be through infrastructure spending, Angara said.

He said P177 billion has been allocated for infrastructure projects for 2009, and P54 billion would be spent for direct labor.

Angara said 54,000 Filipinos would get jobs in 2009 for every P100,000-expenditure.

For these projects to start on time, Angara said the Department of Budget and Management gave its commitment to a timely bidding.

“If we fail to do this now, the outcome is stark and simple: we will fall just like Iceland, just like our neighbors in the Asian region,” Angara said. Iceland declared bankruptcy due to the global financial crisis.

Delon Porcalla
Philippine Star

The government was urged to file a complaint and demand an apology from the British government-owned British Broadcasting Corp. for racist remarks and negative portrayal of Filipinas abroad, specifically Filipina domestic helpers.

Akbayan Rep. Risa Hontiveros urged the Department of Foreign Affairs to file a complaint before the British government and demand an apology from BBC, whose Sept. 26 skit in the popular “Harry and Paul” comedy show was offensive.

This is the second case after US television network ABC apologized for its “Desperate Housewives” show, where actress Terry Hatcher questioned the competence of Filipino doctors since Philippine medical schools were allegedly dubious.

In the British skit, the female lawmaker narrated that comedian Harry Enfield told a postman that he was “shouting at his Filipino maid” to get her “to do her job and get his friend Paul Whitehouse to mate with her.”

The young Filipina househelp was portrayed wearing a grey uniform and an apron, “gyrating and dancing lasciviously.”

“He kept ordering the girl to gyrate and dance in front of Paul and even instructed her to hump him,” related Hontiveros.

She added: “When an indifferent Paul stood up to go inside the house, Harry scolded the Filipina girl, telling her to get out and just go. The scene closed with the postman sidling up to the Filipina, whispering to her as they walked off together.”

“It was revolting. It was a disgusting and an insensitive and racist attempt to satirize a scene of exploitation. By making it a joke, it encourages a consciousness that promotes human trafficking,” the party-list congresswoman complained.

Hontiveros condemned what she called “racist, humiliating and disgusting depiction of a Filipina domestic worker” in Britain, which has numerous laws on equality and respect for diversity, and has always been against human trafficking.

“We hope that the UK government would look into this issue and correct this sickening joke. The show does not exactly promote the stance against trafficking and abuse of women that the UK government has taken in the past,” she emphasized.

She added: “By making a horrible scene of exploitation an object of ridicule, the show trivializes an act of abuse commonly experienced by Filipina workers abroad. It desensitizes its audience about human trafficking, an issue that merits global indignation.”

She said that it was a “humiliating portrayal” of Filipina workers abroad, most of whom have sacrificed their happiness to find decent jobs abroad. The BBC show “promotes negative stereotypes that cultivate impunity among those who abuse Filipina workers abroad.”

“By making overseas Filipinas appear as submissive sex objects, it reinforces the notion that foreigners could easily hire small and sexy Filipina domestic helpers and goad them into becoming sexual objects,” Hontiveros stressed.

“This has to be corrected. Otherwise, it would become easy for other media outfits to use Filipina workers abroad as an object of sexual ridicule,” she said.

“We are not asking BBC to be politically correct. What we want them to recognize is that the exploitation of women should not be used as an object of ridicule. The media should be a partner against human trafficking, and not an unwitting promoter of abuse because of insensitive and racist portrayals of women in trafficking.”

Mayen Jaymalin
Philippine Star
More and more foreign employers are coming to the country to recruit Filipino workers despite the prevailing economic crisis.

The Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA) yesterday reported that a group of Australian employers is arriving in Manila to discuss hiring of additional Filipino workers.

“We are meeting soon with employers from Australia who have expressed their desire to hire an initial batch of 10,000 workers next year,” POEA chief Jennifer Manalili said in an interview.

Manalili said she was informed that the Australian government is embarking on a 15-year construction and rehabilitation that will require a huge number of workers.

“This will be a big employment opportunity for our skilled workers because the construction job will take 15 years to complete,” she said.

Manalili added that Australia would need welders, pipe fitters and other types of construction workers.

“The employers will be coming to personally recruit workers starting in January,” she said.

Meanwhile, local recruiters reported that employment opportunities also await Filipino professionals in the United Kingdom.

Recruitment leaders said British Ambassador Peter Beckingham himself announced that UK is in need of foreign workers, including Filipinos.

He said the number of overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) seeking employment in UK has continuously risen and had already reached about 200,000.

Most of the OFWs in UK are employed in the healthcare industry as nurses, caregivers and chefs.

Just recently, the British Borders and Immigration Agency (BIA) released the national shortages occupation list which include engineers, doctors, nurses, and teachers, among others.

A Study and Work Program, which began in 2007, has enabled more than 500 Filipino nurses to enter and work in UK.

A similar program is now available for Filipino engineers, accountants, and information and technology experts as well as hotel and tourism workers.

Veronica Uy
INQUIRER.net

MANILA, Philippines — At least 781 overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) have been laid off in Taiwan and returned to the country since September after their employers started declaring bankruptcy or retrenching workers as the global financial crisis hit the island-nation, a non-government organization (NGO) said.

Eden See, who assists OFWs in Taiwan’s multinational work force for the NGO Hope Workers’ Center, said as of last Sunday, her organization had helped 581 Filipinos get their employers to shoulder the air fare for their return to the Philippines.

She said another NGO has monitored 200 OFWs who have returned home.

See said this number only represents the migrant workers in the Chung Li and Tao Yuan districts in Taiwan.

“This only represents the migrants who have come to us for assistance. There could be more who went home on their own or approached other Church-based groups for help,” she said.

Some, she said, have also opted to just ride out the crisis there in Taiwan.

She said that while the work contracts for Taiwan specify that employers do not need to shoulder air fare in case of bankruptcy, they were able to negotiate for free transport home for many of repatriated OFWs.

See, who is in Manila, met with officials of the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA) on Wednesday.

She asked POEA officials to ensure that Taiwan employers who have retrenched OFWs be disallowed from “recycling” and “selling” the unused portion of the three-year contracts.

She explained that some employers and “manpower brokers” (recruiters) are able to make money from this scheme because the law allows them to charge placement fees worth around P85,000 to P100,000 for the unused potion of the contracts, or P65,000 if the unused portion is less than one year.

“Some OFWs are lured into paying these placement fees because they are shown these existing job contracts,” she said.

See said they have assisted OFWs who have been in Taiwan for only two months after paying P120,000 in placement fees.

“They raised that amount by going into debt and now that they’ve been retrenched, they cannot pay their debt back,” she said. “It’s sad and unfortunate that for ones so young, they are already burdened by debt.”

According to Jackson Gan of the Federated Association of Manpower Exporters, many Taiwan companies have resorted to cost-cutting measures like shifting and doing away with overtime.

He admitted that job contracts for new hires are not being filled because of the global financial crisis, which is hitting export-dependent Taiwan very hard.

Gan said there are currently about 90,000 OFWs in Taiwan.

Veronica Uy
INQUIRER.net

MANILA, Philippines — Even as the global recession is hitting South Korea’s export-dependent factories, the Philippines still hopes to fill 10,000 jobs left unfilled from last year’s employment permit system (EPS), administrator Jennifer Manalili of the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration said Wednesday.

The memorandum of agreement that allows EPS — the government-to-government system by which OFWs are employed in Korea — is currently being negotiated for extension.

Last October 17, both parties agreed to “extend the validity” of the MOU until a new one would be negotiated within the maximum allowable period of three months.

“We still want to explore the [South Korean] market, we do not want to close the doors yet,” Manalili said, agreeing that there have been reports of layoffs of migrant workers from the country.

Moreover, Manalili said there has been no official cancellation of these job orders.

Manalili said the tax component of the Korean language testing fee was one of the thorny issues still being discussed in the MOU negotiations.

She explained that the Korean language testing centers sought to be tax-free in the Philippines.

“But under Philippine laws, there is tax liability when some income is derived. We are awaiting the reply of the BIR [Bureau of Internal Revenue],” she said.

Mayen Jaymalin
Philippine Star

The Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) reported that over 40,000 Filipino seamen could be displaced due to the prevailing global economic crisis.

Labor Secretary Marianito Roque warned the people that the economic crisis is expected to cause a tourism slump that might adversely affect the employment of Filipino seafarers on board international cruise ships.

“There have been already reports of a slump in tourism, including sea-based tourism. This is a concern because one out of five seafarers — or 47,782 out of 226,900 we deployed in 2007 — are working on board passenger or cruise ships,” Roque noted.

“Our primary consideration is the continued employment of our seafarers in the face of the real possibility of an employment crunch that the financial crisis is expected to bring about,” Roque added.

Despite the gloomy prospects for the manning agencies, Roque said, there is still a need for the country to generate sufficient number of marine officers.

At this time, Roque said the local manning agencies are also facing a shortage of qualified ship officers aside from the financial crisis.

Roque said that out of the 226,900 seafarers deployed in 2007, only 51,353 or 23 percent, were officers. Of these officers, only 13,615, or 26.5 percent, were third engineer officers and third mates.

“This shortage (in ship officers) is a global trend. In fact, the shortage of marine officers is expected to reach 27,000, while ratings will increase to 167,000 by 2015.”

Roque said the shortage might likely worsen because the sea borne trade is increasing faster than the rate of new ship constructions, which grows by only 3.1 percent on average.

“This means that more ships will be needed to carry out trade. And because of increased ship demand, shipbuilding output is expected to double in five years,” he explained.

Thus, with or without a crisis, Roque said the country must produce more ship officers to maximize the opportunities in the global shipping market.

To address the shortage of officers, the Philippine government and DOLE launched this year the “Seafaring Caravan,” a public information campaign promoting the merchant marine profession to high school students, career guidance counselors, and principals.

The Professional Regulation Commission (PRC) has also been publishing the list of topnotch maritime schools, based on the results of the licensure examinations, to promote quality education.

PRC is also set to issue the implementing guidelines for the management level courses for maritime officers.

In late 2005, the PRC, the CHED, and the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration or POEA, introduced a bridging course that enabled graduates of mechanical and electrical engineering courses to obtain a bachelor’s degree in marine engineering and to qualify them for licensure examination.

Roque said the course was designed to facilitate the production of more marine engineers due to the declining number of enrollees in maritime schools.

Manila Standard

SINGAPORE—Southeast Asia’s economies will suffer if a growing shortage of managers and skilled professionals is not addressed, the International Labor Organization warned Tuesday.

The shortages were no longer limited to multinational companies but were affecting an increasing number of local firms wanting to expand globally, the group said in a report, “Labor and Social Trends in Asean in 2008.”

“If these skills shortages are not addressed, they will constrain enterprise competitiveness and Asean’s future development,” it said, citing a lack of managers and skilled staff in the information technology and finance sectors.

The Association of Southeast Asian Nations’ membership ranges from wealthier states like Brunei, Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand to poor countries like Cambodia, Laos and Myanmar.

The other Asean members are the Philippines, Indonesia and Vietnam.

The regional bloc, with a combined population of 550 million people, aims to create a single market and manufacturing base by 2015 in order to have more clout in the international markets.

The ILO said the growing skills shortages raised questions about the quality and relevance of tertiary education in Asean, adding that the problem was not a lack of applicants, but their poor qualifications.

“Many countries have been suffering from a shortage of managers and technical and professional staff, indicating a mismatch between supply of workers with appropriate education and skills and the demand for those types of workers,” it said.

“Skills shortages could undermine enterprise competitiveness in a variety of ways. They can lead to capacity under-utilization and productivity losses, increased labor turnover, higher wage increases and higher recruitment and training costs,” it added.

“If the problems are widespread, whole industries and entire economies may suffer.”

According to the organization, a well-trained Asean workforce will also be better equipped to adjust to changing global trends.

“In the context of the current volatility in global markets and inflationary pressure in most of the Asean member countries, it is even more imperative now that education and training policies support workforce development and enrich productivity growth,” the group said.

Skilled labor shortages was a long-term problem that was likely to persist beyond the current economic meltdown, the group said.

“Even if economic growth in Asean, and in the Asian region as a whole, decelerates in the wake of a slowing global economy, the problems of skills shortages at the high end are likely to remain.”

Asean’s labor force stood at 285 million in 2007, with 40 million more expected to be added by 2015, the group said. AFP