Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA) Regional Director Delfina Camarillo said the move to require applicants for household helps abroad to first undergo training is a means to professionalize the job.
But the training will not only focus on teaching applicants on how to operate modern household equipment, which are common in the countries they wish to be deployed, it also orients them on the culture and language of the country of their destination.
Applicants for household help are now phrased as household skilled workers, as the government put it.
Training for household skilled workers or HSW are provided by the Technical Education and Skills Development Authority (Tesda).
Roger Dancel, chief of the Regional Operations Division of Tesda, said scholarships are being offered in the region. The government shoulders the P5,000 fee for every trainee of the HSW for 256 hours.
Majority of the overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) are employed as household help.
Manuela Peña, director of the Overseas Workers Welfare Administration (Owwa) regional office, said from the 69 percent of females deployed as OFWs, 80 percent are working as household help.
There are 10,864 OFWs from the Cordillera region, according to the Owwa and POEA.
Government explained that the professionalization of HSW is part of the agreement reached between the Philippine and Hong Kong governments when Hong Kong agreed to increase minimum the wages of domestics from US$200 to US$400 a month. (JC/SB)
