THE PHILIPPINES has waived the performance bond and bank guarantee requirements for Singapore employers seeking to hire Filipino workers, the Department of Migrant Workers (DMW) said on Wednesday.
In a statement late Wednesday, Migrant Workers Secretary Susan V. Ople said she informed her counterpart, Singapore Manpower Minister Tan See Leng, of the waiver at a meeting on Tuesday.
“The removal of these requirements was in recognition of the deep and abiding friendship between the Republic of the Philippines and the Republic of Singapore, and was a concrete outcome of the historic first state visit of President Ferdinand R. Marcos, Jr.,” the DMW and the Singapore Ministry of Manpower said in a joint statement.
A performance bond is issued by an insurance company to guarantee the fulfillment of a contract between an employer and employee.
The requirement was imposed after Filipino domestic worker Flor R. Contemplacion was executed in Singapore in 1995 after being accused of killing her employer’s three-year-old son.
Ms. Ople noted that the waivers will generate more employment opportunities for Filipinos in Singapore.
She said the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration has approved the proposal to exempt Singapore employers from the two requirements.
The DMW estimates that Filipinos in Singapore consist of 81,272 domestic workers and 99,333 skilled and semi-skilled workers.
Ms. Ople said Philippine Overseas Labor Office in Singapore approved nearly 10,000 job orders with 5,000 jobs available for aircraft technicians.
“Compared to other countries that also deploy migrant workers, our processing time takes months instead of weeks,” she said, adding that digitalization will narrow the gap while Filipino workers remain sought after because of their “remarkable talent and dedication.”
“We expect a surge in demand for workers not only in Singapore but also in other parts of the world,” she said.
The Philippine Statistics Authority estimated overseas Filipino Worker numbers at 1.77 million as of 2020, land-based and sea-based combined.
The 2019 total was 2.18 million, with the reduction attributed to the impact of the coronavirus pandemic. — John Victor D. Ordoñez