DOLE to lead meeting on permits for foreign workers

Labor Secretary Silvestre Bello III (File photo by GRIG C. MONTEGRANDE / Philippine Daily Inquirer)

The Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) will lead on Friday, March 1, a high-level committee meeting that will discuss how the government could better address the growing number of foreigners, especially Chinese nationals, who are working either legally or illegally in the country, according to Labor Secretary Silvestre Bello III.

Bello told reporters on Tuesday that the meeting would draw up a plan to give the DOLE the sole authority to issue foreign work permits.

Currently, three other agencies can issue work permits to foreigners the Bureau of Immigration (BI), the Mines and Geosciences Bureau (MGB) of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR), and the Professional Regulation Commission (PRC).

During last week’s Senate hearing on the issue of illegal foreign workers, Sen. Joel Villanueva proposed that the BI be stripped of its authority to issue special work permits (SWPs), blaming its “lenience” for the surge of illegal Chinese workers.

Since 2015, the BI, according to its own data, has issued least 260,000 SWPs — or twice the number of permits issued by DOLE during the same period.

Memorandum Order AFFJr. No. 05-009, which was signed in 2005, allowed the BI to issue SWPs to foreigners if they would work in the country for no longer than six months. The SWP is nonextendible.

Foreigners who want to work in the country beyond six months will have to apply at the DOLE for an alien employment permit.

“By law, it is only DOLE that can issue an employment permit,” Bello said. “But there are certain circumstances where an immediate permit has to be granted — like, for example, Justin Bieber,” Bello said.

(Bieber had a concert in the Philippines in May 2011. He was supposed to have another concert here in September 2017, but the Canadian pop star canceled it.]

Bello said that because of the permits issued by BI, the bureau was able to raise funds of P1.5 billion annually.

He expressed concern, however, that the DOLE still didn’t have “the capacity” to be the sole issuing body for foreign work permits.

“That’s the problem,” he said. “We will ask Congress to provide plantilla items so that we can have employees who will attend to this procedure. [Otherwise,] it will affect the issuances. It might [cause a] delay. We don’t have that capacity.”

He added the DOLE would have to study how many additional workers it would need for the job.

Apart from DOLE and BI officials, the Friday meeting will also be attended by officials from the Department of Finance, the Department of Trade and Industry, the Department of Justice, the Bureau of Internal Revenue, and the Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corp. /atm