The consulate general aired the warning as it continued to receive reports that Filipino applicants have paid manpower agencies substantial amounts in placement or recruitment fees.
The Philippine Overseas Employment Administration warned recruitment agencies not to charge placement fees for temporary nonagricultural workers bound for the U.S., particularly Guam where a large military installation is being constructed.
“POEA has adopted a policy that prohibits the charging of placement fees from workers applying for jobs in countries that do not allow charging of such fees since 2001,” the agency said.
“The U.S., including Guam, is now one such country that forbids the charging of placement fees from workers,” it added.
The agency said other countries that prohibit the collection of placement fees from workers include the United Kingdom, Ireland, Israel, the Netherlands, and some parts of Canada like Alberta, Manitoba, British Columbia and Seskatchewan.
Administrator Jennifer Jardin-Manalili said that recruitment agencies that violate this policy face administrative charges and cancellation of their license.
Philippine Consul General Bayani S. Mercado, in a report to the Department of Foreign Affairs, said he met with U.S. State Department Acting Fraud Prevention Manager Clay Allen to discuss measures that could be jointly undertaken by both countries to inform the public about the “no recruitment fee” policy for workers bound for the U.S. and its territories under the H2-B classification, or nonagricultural temporary worker.
Allen was accompanied by Reynaldo Beltran, consular investigations assistant at the U.S. Embassy in Manila and Douglas Carter of the consular security service.
During the meeting, Allen disclosed that his office had been processing applicants hoping to enter Guam who admitted that they were paying manpower agencies placement or recruitment fees.
He added that Topline Manpower Services, a Philippine-based manpower agency, continued to irregularly operate as a labor recruitment agency despite the U.S. Embassy in Manila’s notification to the POEA.
Allen also expressed his willingness to meet with Philippine government officials, including the Philippine media, for an information campaign on the U.S. policy. He added that his office was looking closely at applications for H2-B workers.
The U.S. Embassy’s antifraud division has been working closely with the Guam Department of Labor and other federal agencies in Guam to ascertain that workers coming from the Philippines are employed in the jobs they were hired for, and at the salary scales stated in their applications.
Labor Secretary Rosalinda Baldoz earlier said that around 1,000 jobs for skilled construction workers on Guam were available to Filipinos with the transfer there of U.S. military facilities from Japan.
Baldoz said that the construction of a $700 million naval hospital was expected to begin early next year in the American territory.
