PhilStar EDITORIAL — Stop the recruiters

A Filipino-American recruiter was arrested yesterday in Las Piñas for sending workers to Iraq. Legitimate recruiters also say the Mactan International Airport is increasingly being used by workers leaving for a secondary country before flying to their final destination, Iraq. The Philippine government has banned citizens from leaving for the strife-torn country, but the lure of a quick, big buck is irresistible. With numerous reports of Filipinos managing to make their way to Iraq, the government ban is surely being defied.

This is possible only because there are unscrupulous recruiters who know their way around the Middle East and how to go around deployment bans. These recruiters’ principal concern is not the reconstruction of Iraq but merely to earn fat job placement fees, with little regard for the safety of workers. Sending Philippine troops to that country was dangerous enough. Civilians take more risks, and the ones at greatest risk are those who enter the country without having been apprised of the dangers and without the knowledge of the Philippine government.

If Filipinos are determined to work in a country where security risks make salaries among the highest in the world, they should at least know what they are getting themselves into. If the Philippine government truly wants to put a stop to the illegal deployment, it should crack down on the illegal recruiters and their foreign partners. Any recruiter or company found to have defied the deployment ban must be meted harsh punishment.

Iraq can certainly use international help in reconstruction work. Any such help, however, cannot be done surreptitiously. Violating deployment bans and sneaking around the Middle East to enter Iraq will raise the security risks for anyone entering a war zone. There are many jobs around the world for skilled Filipino workers. In the Middle East alone, the Arabs continue to funnel their petrodollars into massive development projects. The jobs in these sites may not warrant the kind of pay being offered in one of the most dangerous countries in the world. But at least workers in these more peaceful areas have a good chance that they will be able to return in one piece with their earnings to their families. Illegal recruitment for jobs in Iraq must stop.