Protection – or Bureaucratic Burden?: Behind the Philippines’ Regulation of Overseas Contract Workers

Consider the recent experience of “Jane”, a Filipino in her 60s with an employment contract to work as a domestic helper in Hong Kong. Her employer there had agreed with her a short-term arrangement to travel to the United Kingdom to work for them for two weeks. On that basis, the British government issued Jane a temporary work visa valid for six months. But to travel from the Philippines, where she had gone on a home visit, to meet her employer in Europe so that they could together enter the UK (a condition of the visa), Jane needed to have the short-term contract validated by the Philippine labor office in London. She was not able to do so in time and therefore could not obtain the necessary exit certification required for overseas contract workers from the Philippines (overseas Filipino workers, or OFWs) to travel. Jane attempted to exit her home country as a tourist to Singapore, aiming to then to head for the UK, but was prevented at Manila immigration control from departing. She ended up unable to take up the short-term opportunity, for which she would have been compensated at a rate over four times her Hong Kong pay.

A worker frustrated by the bureaucratic hassles and the loss of bonus earnings. An employer disappointed by disrupted plans who had to rush to make other childcare arrangements with minders that she neither knew nor trusted. It is easy to blame government laws, regulations and processes such as those that the Philippines has in place to manage the deployment of OFWs around the world for the difficulties Jane and her employer experienced. But while a case such as theirs was unfortunate and could have been avoided or remedied had there been more time, there is rhyme and reason for the complex framework that govern such employment. The aim: to protect migrant workers, including those who choose to leave the families and homes to take up contracts to work abroad.

A highly vulnerable community

Because many in this community of OFWs may not have the education and support from family required to be discerning and appreciative of the high level of protection offered them by the Philippines’ system in place to manage the OFW’s employment process from recruitment to deployment to return, the rules appear to be oppressive and excessively bureaucratic.

Over the decades, the Philippine government, through the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA) and its overseas arm, the Philippine Overseas Labor Office (POLO), has developed a system and structure of requirements aimed at protecting the OFWs, ensuring all work opportunities for Filipinos overseas are legitimate. The POEA has been recognized by the ILO, a UN organization, for its efforts to protect workers. The pursuit of protection, however, can be a double-edged sword. 

Dire economic circumstances for many, the absence of real options for regular paid work, and the level of pay offered overseas prompt OFWs to want to leave the Philippines urgently and take up work abroad. There are other socio-cultural influences that come to bear on top of employment opportunity – the idea of leaving one’s hometown or city and venturing to a foreign land is considered a badge of honor, a matter of pride and excitement not only for the worker but also for their entire families – no matter what the work. The Philippines is a highly online society, with social-media usage considered the highest in the world at an average of 248 minutes a day in 2021. So in the digital world, Filipinos physically going global to make a living does not carry any stigma or sense of shame. At home, OFWs are widely held up as heroes, whose hard work often in elementary jobs such as domestic help has for years been a major support for the Philippine economy, especially in bad times. 

Crucial safety net

Both OFWs and their employers, oftentimes on the suggestion of middlemen who have some understanding of the POEA requirements, look to an often used sidestep. The OFW is asked to travel first to a visa-waiver country as a tourist/visitor. From there, the worker gets engaged by contract and is then asked to travel to a third country where the employer is. By leaving for employment from a country other than the Philippines, the OFW and the employer effectively avoid having to deal with POEA requirements. But this “sidestep”  is fraught with danger for the OFW.

POEA requirements aim to ensure that the OFWs are well protected. They include employer vetting, the insistence on contracts that include insurance cover for accidental death or permanent injury, the repatriation of remains, airfare to the country of work and return to the Philippines under specific conditions. They also require the involvement of the Philippine labor attaché or any authorized representative of the Philippine embassy or consulate or the nearest competent and appropriate government body in the host country to help settle employment disputes through resolution mechanisms required in employment contracts.

By resorting to the “sidestep”, the protective POEA provisions may well be missing from overseas employment contracts simply because they may not be required by the laws of the employer’s country – whether or not the employer wished to avoid being bound by these rules. I have observed firsthand instances when an OFW has died or been injured but the worker’s contract did not include the usual POEA requirements. That has meant that, apart from relying on the New Zealand system of compensations for workplace injuries and fatalities, the OFW or their family have little recourse other than to appeal to the employer for compassion and assistance. 

The risks of avoiding the normal contractual standards may be far more serious than missing repatriation costs. While most employers going for the sidestep are most likely motivated by urgency and the need to get an employee started immediately and are not intent on abusing their recruits, there are unscrupulous recruiters who prey on vulnerable workers, especially those desperate to start working and earning, who could become victims of exploitation by criminal elements including human traffickers and slave masters. 

Perpetual protection

What many OFWs and employers often do not expect – and what makes the Philippine system both onerous and effective – is that the POEA requirements must be confirmed as met every time an OFW seeks to depart from the Philippines to work overseas. This includes even departures after a short visit home for vacation or family event or emergency. That means that OFWs need to present all the evidence required to depart and return to their country of work. Considering that time away is typically short, especially after long absences, having to spend the time to obtain necessary clearances can reasonably seem to be an undue burden. 

But enforcing the protections each time ensures that OFWs who may have changed employers are fully protected. There are employers who purposely seek third-country OFWs for the ease of recruiting them after they have been brought in by others and might then be contracted to avoid meeting POEA requirements and the time and costs related to fulfilling them. 

Every migrant worker should be valued for the work that they do – and be looked after. The rules and regulations for OFWs that the Philippines implements and enforces have been developed over decades of experience managing the recruitment, deployment and fulfilment of millions of Filipinos who heroically left their homeland to take work that people in their host countries refuse to do or are unable to handle, all to support their families and improve their lives. 

To be sure, meeting the requirements can be burdensome and officials could always do a better job in making the processes more time sensitive to all involved, while maintaining a keen awareness that employers and employees will always want to get everything sorted speedily. The foundation of the POEA framework, which is rightly recognized around the world as the gold standard for overseas contract worker protection, is the Philippines’ ingrained sense of responsibility to its hard-working citizens, particularly those most vulnerable not just to contractual detail and oversight or lesser employment standards in other countries but also to schemes of the corrupt and the criminal.