SECRETARY Silvestre H. Bello III said the Department of Labor and Employment (DoLE) lacks the funding and manpower to issue special working permits (SWPs) to foreigners, after Congress last week proposed to give DoLE that authority.
In a briefing on Tuesday, Feb 26, Mr. Bello said DoLE will ask legislators to authorize more personnel and funding if SWPs authority is transferred to it from the Bureau of Immigration (BI). The DoLE currently issues Alien Employment Permits (AEP).
SWPs are effective for six months at most pending the processing of AEP applications.
“We will ask Congress to provide plantilla items so we can have employees to perform this procedure,” he said. A plantilla item is an authorized slot for personnel in a government agency, duly funded. He also added, “If we are given that responsibility, we may have to ask for a bigger budget.” Mr. Bello said that if not given enough funding, it will affect the issuances of the SWPs, adding, “We do not have that capacity.”
Last week, Senator Emmanuel Joel J. Villanueva said during a hearing on the influx of Chinese workers that he proposes to remove the authority of the BI to issue SWPs.
DoLE issued 169,000 AEPs between 2015 to 2018. Mr. Villanueva added that the BI issued nearly 185,000 in the past 11 months.
DoLE will take part in an interagency meeting on March 1 along with the BI, Department of Finance (DoF), Department of Trade and Industry (DTI), Department of Justice (DoJ), and the Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corporation (PAGCOR), which regulates gaming companies that employ many Chinese.
“There will be an interagency committee that will to address this concern about the employment of foreigners in our country,” Mr. Bello said.
He added that the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) will also take part in the meeting as requested by DoF, saying “(They included) BIR because of the concern of the DoF of foreign workers not paying taxes.” — Gillian M. Cortez
