DMW: Raps filed vs 66 Korea seasonal worker ‘brokers’

At least 66 individuals were slapped with criminal charges over alleged illegal “brokering” of Filipino workers seeking employment opportunities in South Korea’s seasonal workers program, the Department of Migrant Workers (DMW) said Saturday.

“We have uncovered a broker system scheme,” DMW Officer-In-Charge Hans Cacdac said at the Saturday News Forum in Quezon City.

Cacdac said brokers or intermediaries for recruitment in the seasonal workers program charged exorbitant fees ranging from P20,000, P30,000, and P40,000 to as high as P100,000.

“There are Korean agents there, and they have Filipino counterparts,” the DMW official said.

The seasonal workers program allows Filipinos to have short-term employment to address labor shortages during the peak planting and harvesting season in South Korea.

As of December last year, there were 3,353 Filipino seasonal workers in South Korea.

“We want to stop this broker system,” Cacdac said, noting that the amounts charged by brokers, which can be as high as “one-fourth” of a worker’s earnings, were too expensive.

The DMW chief said 66 of these brokers operating in the Philippines had been identified.

“We filed cases against them before the DOJ (Department of Justice)… illegal recruitment and estafa cases,” Cacdac said. “We are cooperating, coordinating with the DOJ.”

The DMW had earlier reminded interested workers that application for the seasonal workers program was free, and the public should report individuals asking for recruitment fees.

In January, the DMW imposed a moratorium on the deployment of seasonal workers after receiving around 150 complaints from Filipinos employed under the seasonal workers program in South Korea since 2022.

To address the situation, the agency said it would issue permanent guidelines for the deployment of Filipino seasonal workers.

The guidelines would cover workers’ standards of protection, fair treatment, decent working hours and wages, access to justice, and the monitoring and prohibition against exorbitant fees.

Despite the moratorium, the DMW allowed the deployment of 39 South Korea seasonal farm workers from the towns of Apalit, Lubao, and Magalang in Pampanga.

Cacdac said that while the moratorium had yet to be lifted, those allowed to fly to South Korea already had processed visas and work permits before the moratorium.

Next week, another batch of 70 Filipinos will be deployed for the seasonal workers program.

The DMW was also eyeing a binding legal agreement with South Korea concerning the seasonal deployment of Filipino farm workers. — DVM, GMA Integrated News