Hundreds queue for overseas jobs despite Veloso case

LIEZL, a fresh graduate and a single mother, has set her sights on an overseas job.

“I want to try my luck overseas to help my family. I want to send my child to a good school and give him a bright future,” she said, while waiting for her turn to submit her application at the Cebu City Sports Complex.

She was among the hundreds of applicants who trooped to an overseas job fair yesterday despite the tragic fate of Mary Jane Veloso, a Filipino worker on death row in Indonesia for allegedly smuggling heroin.

Veloso was given a last-minute reprieve from execution by firing squad on Wednesday dawn. Eight others were executed.

The job fair at the Cebu City Sports Complex was among six job fairs held yesterday in celebration of Labor Day, amid the protest rallies by different labor groups and militant organizations.

Other venues for the job fairs in Cebu were Capitol, SM City Cebu, SM Consolacion and Hoops Dome in Lapu-Lapu City. A job fair was also held in Robinsons mall in Negros Oriental.

A total of 43,313 jobs were offered by 183 employers, said Lilia Estillore, tri-city field director of the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE).

Of these, 33,000 were overseas posts. Estillore said their target was to get 15 percent of the applicants hired on the spot. As of press time, it was not known how many have been hired.

Employers were looking for factory workers, restaurant workers, laborers, nurses, and construction workers, among others.

Estillore said she was confident that the unemployment rate in the country, reported at 4.2 percent by the end of 2014, would further decrease this year and next.

She cited the livelihood programs that DOLE has initiated for the informal and marginalized sectors as well as the different programs aimed at facilitating employment.

Estillore assured that DOLE is closely monitoring employers’ compliance to labor laws. Some 372 labor laws compliance officers have been hired.

“The compliance officers will not stop until the employer has complied with all labor laws and standards,” she added. DOLE has issued Certificates of Compliance to 500 companies in Central Visayas, mostly in Cebu.

At the Cebu City Sports Complex, 24 licensed recruitment agencies offered 18,093 jobs in over 10 countries. The biggest number of job offers, 8,284 posts, came from the construction industry in the Middle East.

Evelia Durato, Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA) Visayas chief, said all the participating recruitment agencies were licensed.

The job fair at the Cebu City Sports Complex was a joint initiative of the Cebu City government, Department of Manpower Development and Placement, DOLE and POEA.

At the Mandaue City Sports Complex, around 1,800 workers convened for the Tripartite Industrial Peace Council (TIPC) assembly.

The council serves as a venue for consultation among organized labor, management and government on labor and employment policies.

The half-day meeting carried the theme, “Disenteng Trabaho at Kabuhayan, Alay Natin sa Bayan.”

Meanwhile, police said the Labor Day celebration yesterday was generally peaceful.

Supt. Romeo Santander, City Intelligence Branch chief, said the protest rallies proceeded smoothly.  A Civil Disturbance Management unit was deployed at Fuente Osmeña yesterday.

“Peaceful. There were no reports on untoward incidents,” he said.