A House leader has proposed a crackdown against foreigners working in the country without permit.
In seeking the passage of his House Bill 5887, House assistant majority leader and Davao City Rep. Karlo Nograles said stiffer penalties shall be imposed on foreign nationals who will violate the country’s labor laws and regulations.
“We must protect the welfare of the country’s human resource against undue incursion of foreign labor in consonance with our commitments to international labor agreements,” Nograles, chair of the House committee on labor and employment, said.
HB 5887, or the substituted HB 5470, or “An Act strengthening the regulation of employment of foreign nationals, seeks to amend specific provisions of the The Labor Code of the Philippines.”
Nograles’ bill provides that an employment permit may be issued to a non-resident foreign national but subject to the labor market test based on the non-availability of a qualified Filipino national.
It also mandates that foreign nationals who are issued employment permits shall transfer technology to Filipino understudies within a prescribed period, Nograles underscored.
“Any non-resident foreign national who shall work without a valid employment permit, as well as the employer who hires him, shall be imposed a fine of fifty thousand pesos [P50,000] for every year of a fraction thereof,” Nograles said
The bill also carries a penalty for violators: a fine of fifty thousand pesos (P50,000) to One Hundred Thousand Pesos (P100,000) and/or imprisonment of sic (6) months to six years.
If passed into law, HB 5887 shall “update the terminologies used in the country’s policy on employment of foreign nationals, in consonance with those we have used in our agreements with the World Trade Organization and the General Agreement on Trade in Services.”
“The measure also seeks to improve the mentioned policy according to our commitments to the WTO and the GATS, and in preparation for the regional integration envisioned in the Asean Economic Community Blueprint,” Nograles said.