RP debaters shine in Asian Tournament

Philippine debaters scored major victories in the recent Asian Universities Debating Championship (AUDC) that pits different schools from nine countries against each other.

Estelle Ople-Osorio, a member of the De La Salle Debate Society and granddaughter of the late Foreign Affairs Secretary Blas F. Ople, was unanimously re-elected as the Chair of the Asian Universities Debating Union and is the first woman to hold the position and the first chairperson to do so in succession.

“Given the success of Filipino debaters in international competitions, we urge the DepEd and CHED to use school debates as a fun learning tool to promote reading, critical thinking, public speaking, and other skills to build confidence among our youth,” she said.

Two other Filipinos made it to the Union’s Executive Committee: 3-time Asian Debating Champion Sharmilla Parmanand, who was elected as adjudication officer, as well as SMU Hammers Champion Carlo Cabrera, who was elected as Secretary.

The Asian Universities Debating Union is the governing body of the Asian Universities Debating Championship (AUDC), the most competitive debating tournament in Asia. Members of the Union include the top universities from Singapore, Japan, Malaysia, Thailand, China, India, Bangladesh, Indonesia and the Philippines.

The Philippines has an impressive track record in AUDC, with Ateneo de Manila winning three out of four championships, losing only this year to Singapore’s Nanyang Technological University by a 5-4 decision.

Filipinos dominate the penultimate rounds as well, with 5 teams representing Ateneo de Manila University, De La Salle University and the University in Santo Tomas in the Top 16. Five out of ten of the Best Debaters in the tournament were also Filipino, namely De La Salle’s Robin Sebolino, Dino de Leon and Ateneo’s Charisse Borromeo, Stephanie Co and Glenn Tuazon, who was eventually named the Best Debater of the entire tournament.

De La Salle University also made a strong showing in the Public Speaking competition, with Pipao Santiago and Philip Binondo making it to the Grand Finals. Philip Binondo’s humorous take on emancipation earned him the much -coveted title of Best Public Speaker in Asia.

Under Osorio’s leadership, the AUDC Executive Committee was able to launch its own official website (http://www.audc.info) and facilitate free adjudication and debate trainings upon request. Her main goal this year is to create a free online debate video archive and motion database that can be used to improve Asian debate and adjudication training.

Osorio said debating could be used as a tool to promote confidence and better communications skills among students.

Do The Math

By Susan V. Ople

When someone tells me to “do the math”, my hard drive slows down and my brain goes on sleep mode. To “do the math”, one must decipher the language of numbers and take umbrage at the absurdity of certain ratios. To the mathematically-challenged, a fraction is a source of inner friction; a decimal point a speck in the canvass of nothingness.

What I can process, mentally and emotionally, are mathematical tragedies. A single earthquake in China kills more than 50 thousand people. In this case, the phrase “killer earthquake” is painfully, woefully apt. The size of the number of victims combined with visuals of searches in rubbles have brought home the message that calamity is too weak a word for the quake’s aftermath.

Mathematically tragic ints the twey-peso wage hike for minimum wage earners. Predictably, big employers pointed a finger at the viability of micro enterprises as moral justification for this micro salary increase. Twenty pesos more at a time when a kilo of the cheapest rice variety yields less than two pesos in change, is oppressive arithmetic to the working class. That the announcement was delivered at an employers’ conference reminds us that government sensitivity has become a lost art.

Out of desperation, many of these minimum wage earners may yet fall in the open arms of illegal recruiters. Desperation drives people to forego what is sane and proper in order to cling to promises sweet and false. The last time I checked the POEA website (Philippine Overseas Employment Administration), there was a new advisory against offers to work in Romania. Similar advisories were issued in the past regarding bogus jobs in China, Canada, Lebanon and Syria.

What is mathematically absurd, however, is that there are only 22 people in the entire POEA bureaucracy that directly works on illegal recruitment cases. With a budget of less than P30-million a year and a staff complement of 22 people, how can illegal recruiters be stopped?

Illegal recruitment cases in 2007 were higher by 8% compared to cases filed with the POEA in 2006. They could not tell me how many were convicted. How can 22 people be expected to monitor and fight illegal recruitment in a country of more than 7,000 islands?

According to POEA records, the number of arrests of suspected illegal recruiters declined from 50 suspects in 2006 to only 26 in 2007. Ever optimistic, the person I talked to in the AIR office said that they are attributing this decline to the success of the POEA’s intensified campaign against illegal recruitment. Not one to pierce a bright red balloon, I obediently wrote his comment down.

Mathematical tragedies happen for a reason. In China, it was caused by a major quake. For the recent wage hike, it was caused by lopsided negotiations. Twenty-two people in an office created to fight illegal recruitment that is both a tragedy and a folly. Consider this: for every undocumented worker that gets caught overseas, the national government is required by law to make sure that he or she gets home. Here is where I now say, please, do the math. (Visit my blog at www.susanople.com. Send comments to toots.ople[at]yahoo.com)

Appeal for Donations of School Supplies

The Blas F. Ople Policy Center received this urgent request for donations of school supplies which we would like to share with possible individual or institutional donors. For those who wish to donate any of the supplies written below, kindly contact the Ople Center at 833-5337 or e-mail us at blasoplecenter[at]gmail.com.

These supplies will enable fifty former child workers to go back to school. The DoLE will tend to their other needs. They just need these school supplies to ease the burden on the children’s parents. Read more

Ople Center warns of higher illegal recruitment cases due to hard times;

Laments inadequate manpower to fight human trafficking

The Blas F. Ople Policy Center expressed concern that inadequate incomes and a severe lack of job opportunities could escalate the number of illegal recruitment cases.

“Driven by desperation, the unemployed and underemployed become easy victims of illegal recruiters who are able to conjure fairy tales of a glamorous life overseas in a single encounter,” the Ople Center said.

Former labor undersecretary Susan Ople, head of the BFO Policy Center, noted a steady increase in the number of illegal recruitment cases being handled by the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration as well as human trafficking cases lodged with the Commission on Filipinos Overseas. Despite such increases, the number of staff handling illegal recruitment and human trafficking cases remain low.

The Ople Center lamented that there are only 22 people in the POEA’s anti-illegal recruitment branch who are involved with surveillance, filing and monitoring of cases as well as conducting preventive information campaigns.

“Twenty-two people within POEA are manning the fort against highly mobile and cunning illegal recruiters with the lives of hundreds of thousands of potential victims at stake. Even if they enter into partnerships with the NBI, CIDG and other agencies, that core staff complement is still woefully inadequate,” Ople stressed. She pointed out that the same holds true for the anti-human trafficking unit of the Commission on Filipino Overseas. At the Department of Foreign Affairs, she recalled that there was only one officer assigned to the anti-trafficking desk.

“When an undocumented worker is detained overseas for some violation, the government is required by law to assist the worker. We can save millions if we invest more in preventing illegal recruitment and human trafficking here at home,” Ople added.

Based on POEA records, there was an 8% increase in pending cases last year compared to year 2006. However, despite this increase, there was a decline in the number of arrests of suspected illegal recruiters from 50 in 2006 to only 26 suspects in 2007.

Meanwhile, the POEA has issued advisories against bogus job offers in Romania, China, Spain, Canada, and other countries. It has also issued a warning to prospective job applicants not to fall victim to online illegal recruitment.

Based on information received by the BFO Center, the inflow of domestic helpers to Syria and Lebanon continue despite government’s efforts to discourage such departures. The Center was instrumental in facilitating the repatriation of women workers from Syria who suffered beatings and abuses from the hands of their agents and employers.

“We would like to warn women looking for jobs as domestic helpers overseas against accepting job offers for Syria, Kuwait and Lebanon. We don’t have an embassy in Syria that can look out for you. Its government has yet to craft comprehensive laws to protect migrant workers. In Kuwait, the number of welfare cases involving Filipino women workers remains seriously high while Lebanon poses a security threat due to persistent armed conflict. Some of our countrymen prefer to throw caution to the wind and try their luck elsewhere thinking that nothing can be worse than the situation here at home. Unfortunately,we have learned of enough horror stories to know that this isn’t always so,” the Ople Center said.

Ople Center urges call centers to follow OSH guidelines of DoLE

Former labor undersecretary Susan Ople urged the call center industry to follow the guidelines set by the Occupational Safety and Health Center (OSHC) of the labor department to promote the health and well-being of thousands of call center agents in the country.

Ople noted that the OSHC has called on different companies to formulate policies that will indicate management’s commitment to a safe and healthful workplace. Under Department Circular No. 1 which was issued last March, the employer has to formulate and implement an appropriate OSH program in accordance with the government’s Occupational Safety and Health Standards and other health-related issuances by the DoLE. Circular 1 also mandates employers to organize Safety and Health committees in their workplace, pursuant to Rule 1040 of the OSHS.

“The BPO sector is a leading star of the economy and must now illuminate the path towards better safety and health standards in the workplace,” the daughter of the late Labor and Foreign Affairs Secretary Blas F. Ople said.

The founder of the Blas F. Ople Policy Center noted that many call center agents are new entrants to the workforce and may not be sufficiently aware of their rights and obligations as employees. “They have a right to a safe and healthy workplace and to humane conditions at work,” Ople pointed out. She said that employees in the BPO sector are prone to work-related musculoskeletal disorders, eye fatigue, and physical stress due to long and irregular hours at work. The Center also noted a number of complaints regarding security threats and harassments experienced by night shift workers to and from their place of work.
“Call center employees that work the night shift are more prone to muggings and sexual harassment because they have a set routine and thus can be easily victimized by street hooligans,” Ople explained.
The former DOLE official noted that the labor department has relaxed its rules to allow call center companies to employ women workers for nightshift duties. “Such exemptions must be matched with appropriate safety and health benefits such as free shuttle services for night shift workers,” she stressed. The Blas F. Ople Policy Center has initiated an online petition for free shuttle services for night shift call center employees. The petition can be found at www.oplecenter.org.

Ople said the country’s successful business processing and outsourcing industry must lead the way in providing non-wage benefits to its employees. According to industry reports, the BPO sector, led by call centers, posted US$4.8 to $5 billion in revenues in 2007, compared to the US$3.4 billion in 2006. It also generated 320,000 full-time jobs in 2007 versus 237, 000 in the previous year.

Despite the steadfast growth of the call center industry, it continues to have a high turn-over rate among employees. “There are high emotional and physical burdens attached to this line of work and it is best if the industry itself sets the example in addressing the welfare of their employees,” Ople added.
She said that a few leading call center companies have been able to promote safety and health standards in the workplace. “A shuttle service for employees will go a long way to assure them and their families that management does care about its workforce,” Ople said.

Ople Center initiates online Labor Day petition for free shuttle services for night-shift call center employees

The Blas F. Ople Policy Center has started an online petition to exert pressure on the call center industry to look after the safety of thousands of night-shift workers by investing in free shuttle services for employees.

Former labor undersecretary Susan Ople said the petition was prompted by persistent reports of harassment and physical threats experienced by employees assigned to work the night shifts, particularly young women who report to work late in the evening and come home in the wee hours of the morning.

“In the spirit of Labor Day this coming May 1, 2008, we would like to propose that Call Centers offer free shuttle services to night-shift employees for their own safety. The service won’t have to bring all of them home directly but at least drop them off in secure places that have decent lighting with access to public transportation,” the online petition said.

Ople said that once the petition has exceeded more than a thousand signatures, the center would transmit the petition to the leaders of the business processing and outsourcing industry as well as to the Department of Labor and Employment. Those who wish to sign the petition can do so at www.petitiononline.com/ccenter1/petition.html.

“Hopefully this will help open the eyes of industry leaders on the hazards faced by their night-shift employees going to and from their place of work. They are more prone to be victims of harassment and mugging because it is during the dead of the night that policemen are nowhere to be found,” she added.

One of those who signed the petition commented, “I fully support the petition since I am sick and tired of meeting hard bodied, sweaty, masculine hooligans at night and I feel unsafe.”

A father of a call center employee wrote that he supports the online petition because his daughter who works in a call center was harassed on two separate occasions while on her way to work. “The first time was when she was walking to work around 9 pm. The second time was while she was aboard a jeepney that was bound for her place of work.”

The Blas F. Ople Policy Center said the government should start looking into the work conditions of call center employees. “The success of the BPO sector should not set it apart from the need to promote safety and health standards for its employees. There are call center companies that are doing a good job in looking after their staff but much more can be done to promote higher standards to reduce occupational hazards that are peculiar to this industry.”

The Ople Center is a non-stock, non-profit organization named after the late Labor and Foreign Affairs Secretary Blas F. Ople, a former journalist who is now acknowledged as the “Father of the Philippine Labor Code and Overseas Employment.” He was the longest-serving labor minister in Asia and the first Filipino elected president of the International Labor Organization in Geneva, Switzerland. The Center is involved in labor and migration issues including the campaign against human trafficking. It also continues to provide scholarships to deserving journalism students in partnership with Samahang Plaridel. It also has a Shoe Donation Program for indigent schoolchildren.