Three industry leaders rejected on Wednesday the proposal of Senator Mar Roxas to let the government handle more employment negotiations and deployment of Overseas Filipino Workers (OFWs).

In a statement, Lito Soriano, executive director of the Federated Association of Manpower Exporters, lawyer Francis de Guzman, noted labor counsel and Ezek Alunen, former POEA Governing Board member and Bureau of Employment Services (BES) director said the plan of the senator to eliminate private business in recruitment is “disappointing.’’

“Senator Roxas’ proposal is a backward step and a return to an employment strategy proven wrong by history,’’ they said.

"His plan will displace more than 50 thousand employees of over a thousand agencies, including related business companies connected in recruitment like medical clinics, travel agencies, trade testing centers.''

The recruitment leaders also noted that the Roxas proposal will only decrease deployment since private employers do not want to deal with government.

They claimed that no super body can effectively compete at present the efficiency of the private sector, which has been in business for the past 40 years.

Based on data gathered from the Department of Labor and Employment (DoLE), the government had phase out private sector participation in the overseas employment program in the early '70s by setting up two agencies under the DoLE, the Overseas Employment Development Board (OEDB) for land-based workers, and the National Seamen’s Board (NSB) for the sea-based sector.

The strategy, however, failed because the two agencies were not able to cope with the enormous and tedious process of recruiting, processing and deploying OCWs (Overseas Contract Workers) then.

Then President Ferdinand Marcos eventually organized the POEA to later handle all aspects of overseas employment and included the private sector to handle the deployment of OCWs.

“It is regrettable that Senator Roxas has a vague idea of what the private sector has done for the recruitment of Filipinos for the past 40 years and the tremendous contribution of the private recruitment industry to the national economy,’’ said Soriano.