Philippines: Film shows �trafficking� of Filipino workers to Iraq has an American face

Apart from Autencio and Mateo, the documentary also featured the case of truck driver Rodrigo Reyes, the first Filipino killed in Iraq.

It was only upon Reyes�s death that the Philippine government imposed a ban on deployment to Iraq. Since 2003, five Filipinos have died in Iraq, according to the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration.

POEA�s Felixberta Romero, director of the Employment Regulation branch, told the OFW Journalism Consortium � June 7 that the agency�s Anti-Illegal Recruitment branch will look at the recruitment agencies that have First Kuwaiti General as its foreign principal. Romero said the POEA has yet to get hard facts about recruiting Filipinos going to Iraq via Kuwait through First Kuwaiti.

Romero added that POEA�s other units, such as the Pre-employment Services Office, have been �sounded off� on this recruitment trail.

Meanwhile, Quiambao identified a woman who lives in Abucay, Bataan and who recruits residents there to go to Iraq, even as she does not run a licensed recruitment agency. For this, Romero promised that the POEA will plan a search operation for that lady recruiter.

A June 18 POEA policy forum will also discuss the issue of recruiting Filipinos to Iraq via Kuwait, Romero bared.

Contractor

THE documentary revealed that recruiting TCNs has a list of subcontractors from different countries.

The mother contractor, the documentary revealed, is American company Halliburton Inc.

Information by the US-based nonprofit groups Essential Information and the Center for Corporate Policy, which run the project called �HalliburtonWatch.org,� reveal that an estimated 50,000 American and TCN contractors are in Iraq under Halliburton�s watch, with 40,000 of them TCNs.

HalliburtonWatch.org said that Halliburton�s contracts in Iraq are expected to have generated �more than US$13 billion in sales�.

Meanwhile, 70 US military personnel are said to have died every day since soldiers landed in Iraq in March 2003.

The watchdog�s website wrote former US Vice President Dick Cheney was CEO of Halliburton , and profits rose because of the company�s contracts with the US Federal government.

Halliburton�s revenue increased 30 percent in 2003 (to US$16 billion) �largely because of its military contacts in the Middle East, and is also the top US Army contractor that same year with a US$3.731 billion contract, HalliburtonWatch.org posted. OFW Journalism Consortium / (davaotoday.com)