The clamour from OFWs and their families to expose ACTS OFW Rep. Aniceto “John” Bertiz as a wolf in sheep’s clothing needs to be heard. His arrogant treatment of OFWs in Hong Kong and him being the president and CEO of Global Asia Alliance Consultants, a recruitment agency suspended for irregularities, clearly reveals that he does not represent the interests of OFWs but that of greedy recruitment agencies. It is about time that he be expelled from congress and be stripped of his unwarranted congressional representation for OFWs.
Shamelessly, Bertiz flaunts his ill-gotten opulence and undeserved privilege. His footing as a legislator fraudulently representing the OFW sector is a mockery towards all the swindled victims of his recruitment agency, a number of whom are receiving assistance from Migrante in their cases.
Bertiz and his agency must be held answerable to the tragic death in October 2015 that befell Lotis Camocamo, a domestic helper from Saudi Arabia who suffered abuse and maltreatment at the hands of her employers. As related by a concerned citizen, it took 2 months before the Bertiz-owned Global Asia Alliance Consultants reported her tragic fate to her family and the agency did not even bother to file any case against her employers.
What does this tell us about Bertiz? He’d rather have recruitment agencies profit more from future transactions with homicidal foreign employers than safeguarding the life and welfare of OFW applicants.
It is not unbeknown to us that ACTS OFW Rep. Aniceto “John” Bertiz has been a regular junket buddy of President Duterte in his expensive overseas trips unwillingly shouldered by overburdened taxpayers.
Backed by the Duterte regime, Bertiz is at the forefront in congress of advancing Duterte’s vile legislative agenda for the intensification of the bankrupt Labor Export Program (LEP).
As a gate-crasher and an uninvited guest, he frantically yelled at OFWs in Hong Kong a couple of years ago just to defend the government’s money making schemes of issuing the useless Overseas Employment Certificate and mandatory OFW IDs to OFWs. OFWs have long been protesting against the Overseas Employment Certificate as an unnecessary state exaction but Bertiz continually justifies its preservation.
Worst, just a couple of months after the execution of Kuwait OFW Jakatia Pawa, Bertiz related his rabid support for the imposition of death penalty. Legislators of this frame of mind are enablers of Duterte’s tyrannical rule in the country.
In a 2017 interview, Bertiz has also expressed his desire to devote a chunk of the $20 Billion worth of OWWA funds for conducting research on the viability of establishing an Overseas Filipino Bank. OFWs view this salivation after OWWA funds as a misappropriation of their hard-earned money at a time when thousands upon thousands of OFWs are in dire need of repatriation and reintegration assistance. Bertiz is likewise pushing for the establishment of a Department of Migration and Development and the furtherance of the pro-recruiter Kuwait-PH bilateral agreement.
The creation of an Overseas Filipino Bank and a Department of Migration and Development is just a systematization and institutionalization of the government’s Labor Export Program.
There is an urgent necessity to end the impunity being enjoyed by ACTS OFW Rep. Aniceto “John” Bertiz for his misbehaviors. One of the ways he can be punished is through his total expulsion from Congress.
In contrast to the pro-LEP and pro-recruitment agency agenda of ACTS OFW Rep. Aniceto “John” Bertiz, the desire of OFWs and their families is the advancement of policies that will give them genuine protection and service.
OFWs and their families have had enough of the Duterte regime’s pro-migrant posturing. We are calling on the government to stop harbouring illegal recruiters and human traffickers. We demand that ACTS OFW Rep. Aniceto “John” Bertiz be expelled from Congress and be totally banned from holding any governmental position representing OFWs.
Bertiz Alis!
