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Friday, June 23, 2006
Labor chief confirms hiring of Pinoys as mercenaries
OUTGOING Labor Secretary Patricia Sto. Tomas on Thursday said Filipinos were being recruited to work as civilian fighters in US military facilities in Iraq.
"There were Filipinos who went to Dubai using visit visas and then they were chartered to Iraq to work as security personnel for US facilities there," Sto. Tomas said.
However, she said the reports they received were still unconfirmed and the reason why the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA) is sending a composite team to Dubai is because the group will verify the alleged illegal deployment of Overseas Filipino Workers (OFWs) as mercenaries.
Sto. Tomas said Filipinos hired as civilian fighters were lured by the recruitment firm with high salaries and benefits to convince them to take the job of securing US military facilities and camps in the war-torn Iraq. "You see, as the condition deteriorates, the premium offered for their services gets higher," she said.
POEA Administrator Rosalinda Baldoz said the deployment of OFWs to Iraq is still suspended. The government stopped sending Filipino workers to Iraq on July 2004 following the abduction of truck driver Angelo dela Cruz and accountant Robert Tarongoy.
"The July 2004 ban on deployment of Filipino workers to Iraq has not been lifted and the reported deployment of security forces to Iraq and Afghanistan did not pass the documentation system of the government," Baldoz said.
She said some Filipino workers are deployed to Afghanistan but they belong to peace-keeping forces hired by the UN and with the clearance and endorsement from the foreign affairs department.
"The POEA processed the contracts of these workers only after an endorsement and clearance from the foreign affairs department, and Afghanistan is classified as a restricted market so we can deploy Filipino workers there as long as there is clearance from the department," she said.
A report said two American companies --Blackwater USA and Triple Canopy -- were recruiting former soldiers and policemen to work as mercenaries in Iraq and Afghanistan.
According to Baldoz, the last time the government allowed the hiring of Filipino workers for Iraq was in 2003 but only for deployment to campsites there, which were safe from attacks from Iraqi rebels and terrorists. She said most of the deployed workers were assigned to do construction, maintenance, housekeeping, and catering jobs inside American camps.
Records of the POEA showed that there are more than 7,000 OFWs working in Iraq but only 4,000 of them are documented while the rest are considered illegal workers who entered Iraq using tourist visas from Dubai, Kuwait, and Turkey. (MSN/Sunnex)
(June 23, 2006 issue)
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