Villanueva on arrested Chinese workers: Gov’t was duped

Sen. Joel Villanueva —INQUIRER.net PHOTO

Senators on Wednesday expressed surprise and dismay at how more than a thousand Chinese nationals were able to work illegally at the Clark Freeport Zone under the radar of government agencies, noting their lapses and the possible exploitation of conflicting policies on foreign employment in Philippine-based firms.

Sen. Joel Villanueva, chair of the Senate committee on labor, employment and human resources development, cited lapses of the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) and the Clark Development Corp. (CDC) after the initial Senate hearing on the single largest arrest of illegal foreign workers in the country.

“With what we saw earlier, kailangan talaga paluin ang mga ahensyang ito (these agencies need a spanking),” Villanueva told reporters, emerging from the two hour-committee hearing with a headache.

“What we established today is that they were duped. Whether or not they have lapses as to the entry of these workers, in monitoring and assessment, we have to establish that. We will look at that in the next hearing,” he told reporters.

Villanueva also cited the emerging “angle” that there were those “who exploit our policies.”

“DOLE should step up and look at the issuance of work permits (in economic zones). CDC had lapses in issuing permits,” he said.

He noted that the agencies seemed “unclear” about their respective mandates.

The labor committee gathered Wednesday afternoon officials from DOLE, the Department of Justice, Bureau of Immigration, Philippine National Police, National Bureau of Investigation and the CDC to find out how 1,335 Chinese nationals lacking proper work documents were found employed at a firm based in Clark, known to be operated by fugitive gambling tycoon Jack Lam.

Lam fled the country earlier this month just shortly before President Rodrigo Duterte ordered his arrest for allegedly trying to bribe Justice Secretary Vitaliano Aguirre II.  The supposed bribery try was not discussed at the hearing, as it focused on the illegal workers.

“The three of us here are surprised at the policy gaps. You were even looking at each other when asked,” said Villanueva during the hearing in reference to his colleagues Senators Sherwin Gatchalian and Nancy Binay who were present at the hearing.

He noted how, at one point in the hearing, CDC officials said they had submitted copies of alien employment permits (AEPs) of foreign workers in the Clark area, while DOLE said they had received none.

During the hearing, Deputy Immigration Commissioner Al Argosino told the committee that out of 1,335 Chinese nationals arrested, 612 had tourist visas and no work permits, 95 were overstaying, while 91 had no passports or any travel documents at all.

A total of 235 meanwhile had working visas for the Subic-Clark economic zones, while 140 were working on the strength of a Cagayan Economic Zone Authority (CEZA) work visas.

Argosino said 1,296 were charged of immigration violations, while 35 minors were released. A total of 583 meanwhile were released on bail, primarily for the lack of space at the BI’s detention facility. He said the BI confiscated their passports and may not leave the country.

The CDC said they knew of 1,546 foreign workers at a firm called Next Games, registered as a business process outsourcing firm but is engaged in the gaming business as a service-provider for another company operating off-shore.

Clark officials said the Chinese nationals were allowed to work at the firm as the Next Games’ clientele were mostly Chinese who spoke Mandarin.

Officials were still debating whether the CDC count included those arrested. CDC vice president for business development Evangeline Tejada said the Next Games workers possessed both AEPs from DOLE and work visas from CEZA.

There are a total of 92,000 employees at the Clark Freeport Zone, with 2,900 of them foreign nationals.

During the hearing, the Senate committee also found that other economic zones do not impose caps on the number of foreign workers employed in their locators at a given time.

DOLE said up to 23,000 AEPs are issued annually, a quarter of them to Chinese nationals. Others who have workers here “in the thousands” are Japanese, Korean, and Indian nationals, and those from Taiwan, said Dominique Rubia-Tutay.