This from the Associated Press (bold highlights mine) ``Ten Filipino workers were among the civilians killed in a helicopter crash at NATO's largest air base in Afghanistan, officials said Tuesday.
``All 16 people aboard the Russian-owned civilian Mi-8 helicopter died Sunday when it slammed into the tarmac at Kandahar Air Base shortly after takeoff....
``The Philippines has banned its overseas workers from Afghanistan, but many still end up employed at military bases there.
``A Filipino carpenter at Kandahar Air Base was killed in a rocket attack in March.
``The Filipinos killed Sunday had been working at the NATO base for several years. They did not return to the Philippines because the government had imposed a ban on travel to Afghanistan, the head of the Overseas Workers Welfare Administration, Carmelita Dimzon, told the Philippine Star daily"...
``Last week, Manila airport authorities intercepted 13 workers bound for Afghanistan. Vice President Noli de Castro said they had been recruited illegally as carpenters, plumbers and electricians at the Kandahar base for a monthly salary of $1,300 — about 10 times what they would make back home...
``Apart from Afghanistan, Filipino workers are not allowed to seek jobs in Iraq, Lebanon and Nigeria. About 6,000 were thought to be working illegally at military bases across Iraq.
Another from the Philippine Inquirer,
``[Philippine Vice President] De Castro agreed with the OWWA that the fatalities were not entitled to full benefits from the government for being undocumented workers.
``However, he said the DFA and the Department of Labor and Employment (Dole) would follow up their benefits from their employers...
``Asked why the Filipino workers were lured to work in this war-torn country despite the deployment ban, De Castro said it could be due to the withdrawal of American forces from Iraq.
“The problem is the concentration of jobs has shifted to Afghanistan because Americans are withdrawing from Iraq,” he said, adding that most of the foreign workers in Afghanistan were employed by US bases and NATO.
``He said the Task Force on Illegal Recruitment, which he heads, has decided to go after the recruiters of the Filipino fatalities."
Our comments:
-the ban on the deployment of Overseas Filipino Workers to places considered as dangerous has not stopped or prevented local laborers in search of "greener pastures" in spite of the increased risks.
This means OFWs in prohibited areas had opted on their own accord to assume security risks in exchange for higher pay.
-It also exposes the impossibility to control people's desire to seek ways to improve one's well being, aside from exposing institutional inefficiencies despite the tomes of regulations and maze of procedures aside from charges and fees slapped on OFWs allegedly for their supposed benefits.
-Because there is a demand for our OFW, a labor black market has emerged.
-And if the demand for local labor in high risk places comes mostly from official institutions as the US or NATO military bases then all the directives to contain illegal recruitment seems like a pretentious witchhunt.
Our regulators appear barking at the wrong tree! Official channel coordination and not a ban should be the answer.
-So instead of helping aggrieved OFWs, the ban has only deprived OFWs of the so called death benefits.
Government policies designed to help the OFW turn out to only punish them.
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