Buildup's start may be late

Completion of environmental study delayed

BY DIONESIS TAMONDONG • PACIFIC DAILY NEWS

A draft study of the military buildup's potential environmental impact to the island may be completed by November -- several months later than the date federal officials had previously announced.

While the delay may push back the expected start of military construction projects, they're still scheduled to begin next year, according to federal and local officials. The start of those projects was targeted for early 2010.

The Environmental Impact Statement is a detailed study of the consequences that the projects may have on the environment. It must be approved before any military construction projects can break ground.

The target date for the draft EIS study to be completed is November, Guam Buildup Office Deputy Director Nora Camacho said during a meeting yesterday at the Guam Economic Development Authority.

The draft statement was supposed to be issued in January this year, then it was pushed back to spring, according to Pacific Daily News files. In July, retired Marine Maj. Gen. David Bice, executive director of the Joint Guam Program Office, said more time was needed to prepare the study, which consisted of more than 8,000 pages.

Camacho said JGPO officials continue to work with certain local agencies to reconcile inconsistencies found in the voluminous study.

Sen. Frank Aguon Jr., chairman of the legislative committee on economic development, said large construction projects, particularly those that require significant digging, will likely be affected by delays. But the senator, who was at yesterday's GEDA meeting, said he also believes the buildup shouldn't be rushed.

"I don't think (major delays) bode well for local businesses who are ready to start breaking ground within the next couple of months, but the reality is the EIS is critical so the community knows and understands exactly what the impact will be to Guam's environment," Aguon said.

Aguon said he thinks any major delays to large construction projects might affect the military's goal of relocating 8,000 U.S. Marines and their 9,000 dependents to Guam from Okinawa by 2014.

Guam Contractors Association President James Martinez said it's no big deal if projects are held back by a few months.

"We're all very anxious and excited to start, but there's also a lot of preparations involved and a little more time to do so might help," he said.

Marine Capt. Neil Ruggiero, JGPO public information officer, reiterated yesterday that they are on track with the environmental impact study and the goal for construction to start is still within fiscal 2010. He wouldn't say whether it would be in the early or later part of the year.

After the final EIS study is approved, a record of decision will be issued, detailing which projects will move forward.

Respicio And Guthertz Assure Guam Jobs For Filipinos

By Michael Rudolph - Guam News Factor

GUAM - Yesterday, Senators Rory Respicio and Judith Gurthertz met with Philippine Overseas Employment Administration officials in Mandaluyong, Philippines. The discussion points revolved around the recruitment of manpower for the Guam military buildup. During their visit the Senators expressed their positive sentiments of the Filipino labor force on Guam.

That, according to reports filed by the Philippine Star and GMA Television News.

Guthertz stated that "Filipinos are hardworking, they're loyal, and they're very, very industrious." Senator Respicio also shared his personal thoughts when he said "we have affinity for foreign workers, especially for Filipinos."

The two senators made assurances that the projected 15,000 to 20,000 job openings on Guam in 2010 related to the military buildup will be open to Filipinos, as potential employment opportunities for Filipinos will not be stymied by the efforts of Hawaii Congressman Neil Abercrombie (D).

"We do not believe it will pass. He will not get everything he is wishing for," said Guthertz commenting Abercrombie's prevailing wage provision. The prevailing wage provision or Kalua Pork Provision would require that the minimum wage standard for all construction workers on Guam will be at the prevailing wage level for similar construction projects in Hawaii. In addition, foreign workers will be allowed to do no more than 30% of the work on the project. According to the Congressional Budget Office, Abercrombie's provision would increase the cost of the buildup by $10 billion.

Filipinos should know that they have advocates in their corner, as evidenced by Senator Guthertz and Recpicio's comments and efforts to ensure that our fellow Pacific Islanders do not get left out in cold by Abercrombie's Kalua Pork Provision.

Read the Philippine Star article, "20,000 jobs up for grabs in Guam", September 2, 2009.

Read the GMA News.TV story, "Filipino workers assured of more jobs in Guam", September 2, 2009.

Guidelines on Guam out in Nov.

THE Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA) chief said on Thursday the guidelines for the deployment of 15,000 to 20,000 overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) to Guam would be released in November or December this year.

POEA Administrator Jennifer Jardin Manalili said in a press conference the agency is finalizing the rules and regulations for the deployment to craft a standard contract for workers who will be hired to work in Guam.

“The guidelines will hopefully be out by the end of the year, around November or December. We foresee that there will be a surge of OFWs who would want to go to Guam,” Manalili said.

Guam is offering construction work to foreign workers who could earn as much as $17 an hour, Guam senator-adviser Alfredo Antolin Jr. said.

No recruitment fee will be collected from aspiring workers but a service fee of up to $1,000 will be collected from the construction companies that will hire foreign workers.

However, recruitment consultant Emmanuel Geslani said the standard employment contract of the POEA, which insists on free food and accommodation for the OFWs, is contrary to Guam labor laws.

The Guam labor laws, which are patterned after the US mainland laws, state that food and accommodation should be shouldered by workers, similar to what is practiced in all the US states.

Geslani expressed the fear that if the contractors from Guam will shoulder the $400 airfare and a visa fee of $1,000 for a H2-B temporary working visa, the companies might be “turned off” and hire Americans instead.

“Therefore, it would be easier to hire jobless American nationals or other foreign workers who are from the mainland or can fly in on their own airfare and without the need of a visa and no service fee is involved. So, no additional costs are involved if the contractor hires [jobless] American nationals who now number 2.5 million mostly in the construction and home industry,” Geslani said.

“The hiring rules are the same as in the US, which [pay] on a per hour [basis] and Filipinos will receive the same pay as the Americans. So why hire a Filipino if you can hire an American at no cost to you? This is what recruitment leaders are saying. There is no advantage in hiring Filipinos. In fact, it is a disadvantage to contractors or subcontractors who will work on the expansion of the Andersen Air Force Base in Guam,” he added.

A proposed bill, the 2010 National Defense Authorization Act, to the United States House Representatives, 70-percent of jobs in Guam are reserved for American citizens. Written by Sara Fabunan / Business Mirror Correspondent

RP needs labor attaché in Guam

HAGATNA, Guam—Guam Sen. Frank Aguon Jr. asked Philippine Labor Secretary Marianito Roque to send a labor attaché to Guam to oversee the needs of Filipino workers expected to fill thousands of jobs that will be generated by the impending US military buildup on the island with the relocation of thousands of US Marines from Okinawa.

Aguon last week wrote to Roque on the heels of a complaint filed by nine H2 workers who left Guam on August 27 after reluctantly accepting a meager amount of cash from Base Corp., their former employer. The United States H2 visa is issued to unskilled workers and is the most commonly used for workers in farming or construction.

They filed a complaint against the company at the local and federal labor departments for wage theft and maltreatment.

“It is critical that a Philippine representative with labor and welfare expertise assist workers in their need as they adjust to their new living and working environment,” said Aguon, chairman of the Committee on Economic Development, Health and Human Services and Judiciary.

The nine Filipino construction workers came to Guam early this year with hopes of earning good salaries to send back home to their families. But they flew back to the Philippines and decided to abandon their labor complaint after receiving $1,500 each from Base Corp.

“They could have stayed to see their case through because the federal labor department offered to give them immigration relief that would allow them to stay legally,” said Felix Aguon, a local labor-rights activist who assisted the Filipino workers. “But they wouldn’t take chances. They just wanted to leave.”

Danilo Navarette, spokesman for the group, signed a contract with the company to work as a carpenter. His contract stipulated a minimum wage of $13.56 an hour, but he only made $11.70 an hour. The employer deducted $200 from his monthly pay checks.

“We didn’t know the purpose of the deduction,” Navarette said in Pilipino in an interview before he left Guam. “We spent more for the recruitment than the amount we saved.”

The complaint was filed by Navarette, Victor Cortez, Ruben Enriques, Vergilo Enriques, Arnulfo Ruiz, Ferdinand Lubong, Rolando Aquino, Leonardo Paulino and Roberto Fabian, who all came to Guam in January.

Their contracts were supposed to be good until October but Base Corp. fired them after they filed the complaint.

“More Filipino workers with H2 visa will be coming here. We don’t want them to suffer what we had experienced,” Fabian said in Pilipino.

Guam will need about 30,000 foreign workers to pick up the construction jobs that will be generated by the relocation of 8,000 US Marines from Okinawa.

The island is dependent on the federal guest-worker program to fill its huge labor gap. The Philippines is a main source of manpower for Guam’s construction industry. Written by Mar-Vic Cagurangan / Special to the BusinessMirror

OFWs assured in Guam

Filipino workers assured of more jobs in Guam’

KIMBERLY JANE T. TAN, GMANews.TV

Despite an American lawmaker’s recent proposal to cut down the number of foreign workers in Guam, the US territory’s officials said Wednesday that the projected 15,000 to 20,000 job openings there will still be up for grabs – preferably to Filipinos – come 2010.

“We have affinity for foreign workers, especially for Filipinos," said Guam Senator and Majority Leader Rory Respicio during a press conference held Wednesday at the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA) office in Mandaluyong.

Respicio made the assurance after US Representative Neil Abercrombie filed a bill that would cut down the percentage of work for foreign workers in the Guam labor market to only 30 percent.

But Guam Senator and Assistant Majority Leader Judith Guthertz said that their Senate will have to pass a similar proposal as Abercrombie’s before it can even take effect. “We do not believe it will pass. He will not get everything he is wishing for," she said.

‘Hard-working, loyal’

Guam officials had also earlier expressed their intention to hire Filipino workers for thousands of jobs that would open up during the transfer of the US military bases from Okinawa, Japan to the island in 2010. (See: Pinoys eyed to fill up 15,000 job vacancies in Guam)

“The most likely source of non-US workers for us would be the Philippines," said Guthertz. This, said Respicio, was because “Filipinos are hardworking, they’re loyal, and they’re very, very industrious."

Alfredo Antolin Jr., senior adviser of both Respicio and Guthertz, said that Filipino workers should find this opportunity very promising. “In Guam, they will be making good money, there won’t be exploitation," he said.

For the relocation project, Guam is willing to pay foreign workers at least $12 or almost P590 per hour or about $1,920 a month equivalent to about P94,000.

Moreover, Guthertz said prospective hires will not have to worry about any placement fees because they will be charging the annual $1,000 service free to their contractor. She said the fee collected will go to their manpower development fund used to train their local workers.

“That (the service fee) is something they have to monitor pero magpupulis din naman tayo dito sa atin (but we will also monitor that on our side)," said POEA Administrator Jennifer Manalili on the possibility that the burden of the service fee might be passed on to the worker.

Manalili said recruitment for the Guam relocation project will not begin until 2010. She added that they have yet to determine the modes of recruitment.

POEA records showed that as of June 2008, a total of 14, 497 Filipinos were residing and working in Guam. A total of 2,352 Filipino workers have been deployed there since 1998. - GMANews.TV

50K Philippine Workers 'Set To Be Hired' For Guam Buildup. But U.S., Japan Still Coming To Terms

Written by Jeff Marchesseault, Guam News Factor Staff Writer

GUAM - The Philippine government's optimism about Guam's massive military buildup and the island's arguable 'need' for qualified Filipino labor is refreshing. But the reality among the powers that be says it'll be awhile before Washington, the Department of Defense, and the government of Japan -- much less the Government of Guam -- will know when housing and other construction can start in order to begin accommodating the arrival of U.S. troops eventually to be resettled here from Okinawa.

Let's Not Jump The Gun

This morning's edition of the Philippine Star reports:

At least 50,000 Filipino construction and other skilled workers are set to be hired in Guam to construct a large military base in that US territory, the government said yesterday.

Augusto Syjuco, Technical Education and Skills Development Authority director general, said Guam will hire carpenters, welders, masons, heavy equipment operators, and cooks and waiters who will serve those construction workers.

While more than 50,000 may stand willing, ready and able for hire from across the Philippine Sea, several key issues must be settled within Washington and between the U.S. and Japan before labor can be identified and construction can begin.

A Seismic Undulation

Over the weekend Japan experienced a major power shift after a nationwide election ended the more than five-decade reign of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) to make way for the much-favored Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) in a landslide victory that may only embolden the DPJ's resolve to carry through on its scrutinous intentions with regard to traditional U.S.-Japanese relations. Chief among sticking points in these relations is the Guam buildup.

Still On The Table

If the DPJ carries through on its stated resolve to stop following the U.S. lead in foreign affairs and start implementing cost controls on Japan's investment in American protection, then the Guam buildup could conceivably receive less than the $6.09 billion in financing earlier promised by the LDP for Japan's part of the deal. And an LDP-brokered deal to move a Marine air base from metropolitan to remote Okinawa to help relieve military congestion as part of the Okinawa-to-Guam transfer will be reexamined. Furthermore, the U.S. Congress has yet to settle on a bicameral version of the 2010 Defense Authorization Act, which means foreign labor quotas and wages for Guam's buildup remain unknown, right along with other defense spending on Guam.

As Guam News Factor reported on August 23, independent news sources had found that, owing to various delays including a lack of clarity on when (and how many) troops will leave Okinawa for Guam, Guam's military housing construction timetables were already six months behind schedule.

Buildup Terms Depend On America And Japan

The Republic of the Philippines is doing the right thing by remaining vigilant about vouchsafing Guam jobs for its skilled workers. However, along with this vigilance must come an appreciation for the U.S.-to-Japan bilateral relations guiding the Guam buildup, outside the control of the governments of Guam and the Philippines.

Today's Philippine Star also states:

Syjuco said two senators from Guam are arriving in Manila this week for the preparatory hiring of Filipino skilled workers.

"The two senators will be staying from Sept. 2 to 4 to discuss preparations for the deployment of Filipino workers, and soon afterwards we expect the interviews and recruitment to start," he said.

Syjuco said TESDA has now sufficient manpower to fill up the requirement in Guam.

Even if two senators from Guam are planning to visit Manila to help ease the way for the hire of Filipino workers, it must be realized that, ultimately, both houses of the U.S. Congress and the President of the United States must agree on the terms and makeup of Guam's buildup labor before any hiring can begin. And it also must be expected that a victorious DPJ might also have something to say about it.

Read the Philippine Star story,"50,000 OFWs set to be hired in Guam", August 31, 2009.

Read the Guam News Factor analysis, "Guam Buildup Housing Delays: There's A Much Bigger Picture At Play", August 23, 2009.

Read the Guam News Factor analysis, "Guam Better Brace For New Buildup Hurdles: Exit Poll Shows New Leadership In Japan", August 30, 2009.

Read the Guam News Factor analysis, "Guam's Fall-2010 Buildup Launch Could Hinge On Japan's Election This Sunday", August 29, 2009.