The Philippines is without a doubt known for its abundance not only in terms of natural resources but also in terms of manpower supply. Despite the country facing a lot of challenges, Filipinos have already been proven to be one of the most resilient, skillful, versatile, and competent group of people. Wherever in the world the Filipinos are, for sure adapting to the environment, adjusting to another country’s culture, and proving his tested skills and professionalism can make him a “exceptionally an asset.”  At present, more than 10% of the country’s population work overseas, and domestic helpers, healthcare providers, and educators are among these. Another interesting thing is that more and more Filipinos become attracted to working overseas, most especially those who are in the nursing profession, education, engineering, and technology areas. Given that, more and more foreign employers cannot simply say “no” to hiring and employing Filipinos- be the employees they are looking for are professionals, skilled, or non-skilled. And most of the time, and most of the foreign employers in fact, rely on recruitment agencies in order to look for the “right people” to hire. However, with the increasing number of Filipinos who aim to fly abroad and the foreign employers eager to hire Filipino workers, both parties sometimes end up being victimized by illegal recruiters. The sad thing is most of the Filipinos who aim to earn a living overseas, when victimized, are left with no money at all because they have given what they have in order to have their papers processed. On the other hand, the foreign employers, who in the same way are victimized by illegal agencies, have lost their trust and confidence on the system of recruitment in the country because they learned their lesson the “hard” and “expensive” way. As a matter of fact, even the professionals, particularly the nurses (who after passing the Nursing Board Exam in the country and working here in the Philippines for a given period of time) are victimized by illegal agencies. Likewise, the hospitals and clinics from the United States, Canada, Australia, UAE, other European countries area among the foreign healthcare facilities also victimized by illegal agencies.

Having said all these, it is then very important that the whole process of hiring and applying for overseas employment be done the legal, organized, and “POEA-recognized” way. How can this be? The simple answer is actually: by making the whole process recognized by the POEA.

“What” or “who” is POEA? “What” power or authority does it handle? “How” can the process to be recognized and legalized?

Philippine Overseas Employment Agency, or POEA as it is better known, is a government agency that is in charge of upgrading, advertising, monitoring, and controlling the overseas employment of Filipino workers, whether th employment is sea-based or land-based, whether the Filipino worker is a skilled professional or not, and whether the employer is from the United States or from other countries. From processing to deployment, POEA is responsible for assuring both parties, the employer and the employee, that everything is done the “legal” way.
Founded in 1982, the POEA has been considered the mother agency of all recruitment agencies in the Philippines. It was also re-structured in 1987 to also encompass the following functions and responsibilities, such as taking the responsibility of making decisive moves in terms of making the workers meet the demands of foreign markets and employment requirements and system, protecting the rights and concerns of the Filipino workers who are deployed abroad, and strengthening the regulatory guidelines and policies concerning overseas employment. Thus, in order to successfully carry out the aforementioned functions, POEA has consistently sees to it that all recruitment agencies should meet the requirements for the benefit of the Filipino overseas workers.

Despite the effort and provisions of the POEA and the Philippine government, there are still cases of illegal recruitment in the country, and the sad thing is there even exist legal recruitment agencies who tend to abuse their edge to over-collect fees and payments from employers and even from the prospective employees and applicants. One particular example is the healthcare facilities in the US who intend to hire nurses in the Philippines. They are mostly victimized by over pricing because the US is always in need of healthcare providers and most agencies abuse such demand. Even sometimes, the nurses are also victimized of most legal agencies by demanding payments that are overpriced and sometimes providing work contracts that are short-term. In the same way, because of healthcare facilities urgent need for healthcare providers, agencies provide them with ineffective nurses who had low passing marks in their board exams and qualifying tests. In view of this, it is important to realize, both by the healthcare facilities and nurse-applicants, to trust and consider only those POEA-recognized agencies that have been tested by time, the agencies that have already created a reputation and “name” in the field of recruitment. They are for sure will not just gamble their name and long-term service for just a thousand dollars of placement fee.

This entry was posted on Friday, June 20th, 2008 at 4:06 am and is filed under Resources. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.