IOM chief visits Manila to open migrants' center

The director general of the International Organization for Migration (IOM) will be in Manila this weekend for the opening on Monday of the National Re-integration Center and a library for Filipino migrants, a joint project with the Department of Labor and Employment. While in Manila, IOM director general Brunson McKinley will also receive an award from President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo in recognition of IOM’s assistance in the repatriation of Filipinos from Lebanon in 2006 at the height of the tension between Israel and Lebanon. McKinley will be planing in from Japan for the second leg of his four-country trip, which also includes South Korea and China. The Asian visit aims to deepen existing relations and to explore further areas of cooperation between IOM and Asian governments. A statement on the IOM website (www.iom.int) indicated McKinley arrived in Japan last Tuesday and was to spend five days there. The re-integration center and library for migrants is part of a comprehensive reform program of the DOLE aimed at improving government’s protection to overseas Filipino workers (OFWs). The Center will link OFWs with non-government organizations and other agencies that can help ease their resettlement back home, Labor Secretary Arturo Brion said in a recent interview in Manila by Hong Kong-based Filipino journalist Daisy C.L. Mandap for The Sun (www.sunweb.com.hk). The launching of the Center follows the full implementation on March 1, 2007 of the guidelines issued by the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA) governing the deployment of Filipino household service workers, commonly known as domestic helpers. The guidelines doubled the monthly minimum wage of Filipino HSWs to $400, raised the minimum age requirement to 23 and required skills and language proficiency training for first-time hires. Apart from this, Brion said the campaign against illegal recruitment has also been intensified. This has been shown by the series of arrests of illegal recruiters sending workers to Hong Kong, Taiwan, Macau, South Korea, Turkey, Norway, and Canada in recent weeks. In the next few months, the labor department will also take steps to improve the pre-departure orientation seminar (PDOS) and set up an effective complaints system. - GMANews.TV