Philippine Rep. Ron Salo, far right, discusses a fact-finding mission he and others from the Asian country conducted to research solutions to a monthslong backlog of foreign labor requests from Guam companies during a press conference Wednesday at the Ricardo J. Bordallo Governors Complex in Hagåtña. Pictured from left, Philippine Rep. Rodante Marcoleta, Guam Gov. Lou Leon Guerrero and Lt. Gov. Josh Tenorio.
HAGÅTÑA (The Guam Daily Post) — Four members of the Philippine House of Representatives said they would resolve a monthslong backlog of requests for Guam businesses to employ workers from the neighboring country.
The group is part of what the governor’s office described as a “high level” fact-finding mission to the island where the Philippine government representatives would see firsthand the conditions their countrymen live in while working on Guam, and hear directly from local employers on how the Philippine attaché based in Los Angeles, California is contributing to delays in construction projects.
After several days of site visits and stakeholder meetings, the group, along with Gov. Lou Leon Guerrero, Lt. Gov. Josh Tenorio and members of their administration, held a press conference to announce mutual understanding and a joint desire for a short turnaround to fix the problem.
Philippine Rep. Ron Salo, who led the delegation, chairs the House committee on overseas workers. He told reporters that the push to work on the H-2B visa requests stems from a better understanding of the plight facing Guam’s construction industry and its larger economy, alongside a direct view of how the island treats his countrymen when they take jobs here.
His support came after “knowing and noting that the Guam government follows the U.S. standards where respect for human rights, and where respect for labor is very much paramount,” he said.
He thanked Leon Guerrero for “prioritizing” Filipino workers, in spite of the current challenges with approving requests to bring more to the island to work on construction projects.
“We have been meeting a lot of concerns, and yet you…still prefer Filipino workers. With that, we’re very thankful that you’re really prioritizing us and you’re really taking good care of our people here,” he said.
Salo committed, along with his colleagues on the trip, to push for the creation of a specific attaché for Guam’s applications, either based on island or “at the least” in Manila. The local administration and visiting congressional representatives also said they will continue to work on a “country-specific” agreement between Guam and the Philippines that will help standardize and streamline these labor requests.
“Soonest,” is how Salo answered a question on how quickly these solutions can be enacted.
Salo confirmed that legislative action through the Philippine Congress can enact any reforms needed and that any changes would not need to be sanctioned or approved by the U.S. federal government.
“The current status now is all these papers are getting validated all the way in Los Angeles. And definitely…the distance, as well as the length of time just to send those documents, would really add up to the processing…as well as the cost…that goes with it,” he said.
A new Philippine congressional session begins in January, but a report on the trip will be submitted to other House members as soon as next week, according to Salo.
It was noted that improving the process to work on Guam also benefits the millions of Filipinos who are looking for work. The delegation said, based on interviews held with current H-2 workers, that Guam wages can be eight to 10 times higher than comparable positions in the Philippines.
Leon Guerrero first broached the subject during a trip of her own to Manila in October. An official invitation following the visit led to this week’s fact-finding mission.
“It is a big, big event for our people of Guam to have congressmen and women here so that we can move this forward quite fast,” she said.
The governor called the meetings “productive” and thanked the group for their willingness to travel in order to see the difficulties facing local businesses for themselves.
“There are going to be positive resolutions that will come down as a result of our meeting,” Leon Guerrero said, later stressing the delegation was put together in just two months’ time because they recognized the issue’s importance.
“This is going to be a rapid influence of our expansion and growth in our economy,” the governor said.
Other members of the delegation were also upbeat about the potential resolutions coming from the trip, underscoring the mutual importance of an effective country-to-island hiring process for skilled laborers.
“I was sad to hear that you had several setbacks in being able to hire the quantity and quality of people you need to work here in relation to the building up of your military security in your area,” Rep. Rodante Marcoleta told the governor.
He also said the local situation shows that perhaps more congressional oversight should be exercised to ensure improvement in the processing of foreign worker requests from Guam.
“But, at one point I’d like to also thank the labor attaché in L.A. for being so inefficient, because if he was so efficient maybe this delegation would not be present today,” Marcoleta joked.
