All manning agencies occupying booths at Rizal Park in Manila have been ordered to stop all their recruitment activities or face sanctions, a government body said.
The Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA) disallowed such activities, citing previous cases of alleged malpractices.
All the recruitment activities of manning agencies in the park, more popularly known as Luneta, are deemed illegal, the POEA said in a release dated July 15.
“The POEA has discontinued issuance of Special Recruitment Authority (SRA) to the said agencies in May 2009 because of reported hiring malpractices," POEA Administrator Jennifer Manalili said in the statement.
The POEA issues SRAs to licensed agencies authorizing them to conduct recruitment outside their registered offices, or the address stated in the license of an agency and its branches.
The booths are currently being managed by the private Luneta Seafarers’ Welfare Foundation, Inc. (LUSWELF) at Luneta near the National Library, and had been there for over three years prior to the ban.
The POEA likewise directed manning agencies to submit sworn statements of their activities, and remove their respective signages and posters of job openings in the area.
The POEA explained that over the years and because of its proximity to recruitment agencies based in Manila, the part of Rizal Park adjoining T.M. Kalaw Street where the booths are located had been a meeting place of seafarers looking for jobs in foreign vessels.
The Associated Marine Officers and Seaman’s Union of the Philippines (AMOSUP) thought of converting the place into a center where seafarers coming from the provinces can have a place to stay in Manila while looking for a job or waiting to board a ship.
The idea later evolved into a center where information about seafaring can be discussed or posted. AMOSUP later transferred the management of the center to LUSWELF.
The POEA became part of the center in 2007 through a memorandum of agreement with LUSWELF by conducting orientation seminars and distribution of information materials.
LUSWELF later rented out booths to manning agencies which wanted to recruit seafarers in the area. Consequently, the POEA issued SRAs to legalize the recruitment activities of the agencies.
In April 2009, the Joint Manning Group, a conglomeration of several associations of manning agencies issued a resolution enjoining their members to pull out of the LUSWELF area because the objectives of the center were no longer met.
The POEA has not issued any SRA since May 2009 but instead conducted inspections to monitor the activities of the agencies.
The release stated the POEA has filed several administrative cases against manning agencies caught recruiting seafarers in the area without the necessary special recruitment authority.
In a separate interview, a LUSWELF official who declined to be named however said representatives of agencies occupying the area’s sidewalks to recruit seafarers are the ones guilty of illegal recruitment, and not the ones with booths.
“None of the 110 agencies renting booths from us has been found guilty of malpractices," the official told GMANews.TV, adding that the booths are mere information centers and that actual recruitment still has to be done in the agencies’ main offices.
The official added “big-time manning agencies" whose businesses have been threatened by the agencies under the LUSWELF booths may have initiated the ban.
Before the ban, some 1,000 seafarers had been deployed daily through the information booths, the official said.
LUSWELF is preparing a letter of protest and spearheading a signature campaign against the prohibition, according to the official, which will be submitted to the POEA. - RJAB Jr., GMANews.TV
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