The Katipunan ng mga Samahan ng Migranteng Manggagawa sa Korea or KASAMMAKO together with Filipino Employment Permit System(EPS) Workers Association(FEWA) and other Filipino organizations in South Korea strongly opposed the proposal to charge the foreign workers the cost of food and lodging currently given to them for free by employers of small and mediumscale enterprises. This proposal will further disadvantage Filipino migrant workers and discriminate them economically in relation to the Korean workers.

Once this proposal will become part of the Memorandum of Understanding of the Employment Permit System, Filipino migrant workers' salaries and benefits will shrink further and thus will be inadequate to support their families in the Philippines. As of now the minimum wage in South Korea is only 800,000 won or approximately 570 US$. If cost of food, board and other taxes amounting to 300,000 won (214 US$) is charged on migrant workers' wage what remained is only a measly won(357 US$). If you send it to your family at the current US Dollar-Philippine peso exchange rate the amount they will receive is only 16,500 peso.

This proposal is push forward by Ministry of Labor of the Korean government in exchange for the reduction of cost of Korean language course required of migrant workers to get a job in South Korea as disclosed by Ms. Jenifer Jardin Manalili the POEA Administrator. She claimed that when the new MOU is signed by both countries the proposal to charge migrant workers of food and lodging cost would reduce the language fee from $30 to $17. This is not wholly correct because Filipino migrant workers have to pay the language course from their own pocket or the Korea Bureau on Human Resources charge migrant workers the language fees.

This proposal reflects the political stance of the Arroyo government on the plight of migrant workers-sheer indifference, subservience to foreign governments and the utter inutility to address the economic situation in the Philippines. In view of this, we deplore the strategy used by both the Philippine and Korean governments of making the migrant workers as the economic shock absorbers of the n대-liberal economic crisis. Why are migrant workers always the scapegoat of the crisis that they are not responsible?

Therefore, we call the Philippine government to desist to include this proposal in the Memorandum of Understanding of the Employment Permit System. We also call on the Korean government to cancel this proposal in MOU of EPS. We call all migrant to unite to oppose this proposal.

2009. 1. 10. Chairperson of KASAMMAKO