OWWA Administrator storms into office of recruitment agency shortly after staff hung up the phone on him

Manila, Philippines – Overseas Workers Welfare Administration (OWWA) Administrator Arnell Ignacio stormed into the office of Philco Human Resource Services Corp. Agency.

This happened shortly after a staff member hung up the phone in the  middle of their conversation at Senator Raffy Tulfo’s Wanted sa Radyo Program.

In an 8-minute video posted in his social media account, Ignacio was seen fuming with rage at the staff for their action.

He was looking for a certain Daisy that he spoke with on the phone but the female staff cannot present her.

“What’s your number here,” Ignacio asked in Filipino.

To which the staff replied, “Actually sir, (that number) is no longer updated. The one on our website. We’re supposed  to update it to the DMW (Department of Migrant Workers) It’s an old number.”

“An old number? There’s somebody who answered the phone. It appears as if when I told you I’m going to storm that all of you decided to answer. You think I was not serious? I will really storm on you. You have no problem anyway. You gave (me) a problem now,” an obviously enraged Ignacio said.

Lost for words, the female staff apologized to Ignacio and repeated her earlier assertion that the phone number is no longer updated.

Eventually he asked the staff to call Normita, the owner of  the recruitment agency.

In the latter part of the video, Ignacio continued to berate the staff over their “inefficiency,” asking how can OFWs contact the agency and know their active number if even the OWWA cannot reach their number.

“What’s your use if there’s an emergency like this? Nothing.Your building is hard to find as well it’s too covert. You think I won’t come here? I’m patient with this,” Ignacio added.

He followed up before the staff why can’t she access the recruitment agency owner but the staff who introduced herself as the company’s liason officer said she has no cellphone load.

Pressed further, he asked the staff if she knows the employer that was subject of the complaint. However the staff replied, “I have no direct contact with him.”

“See, this is the problem now. Now it was seen how inefficient your system is here. For example, if something bad happens like that, you’re very hard to reach and it came from your mouth that you have no contact with the employer,” Ignacio said in disgust.

He further called out the staff for saying they have just started deploying 20 OFWs to Riyadh, Saudi Arabia but they have no contact with the  employer.

“You know how difficult it is to monitor OFW. You see it came from your mouth. You have only deployed 20 and you don’t even have the number of the employer and yet you will tell me about the time difference (between Philippines and Saudi)? You should have known it,” an obviously exasperated OWWA admin Ignacio told the staff.