Under POEA Rules and Regulations, agencies risk licence cancellation for subverting fee policies
and other illegal operations. However, data provided by POEA to Center for Migrant Advocacy
(CMA) in 2016 on the issuance of suspension and cancellation orders for rules noncompliance
revealed that repeat offenses are common among “top offender” agencies. Multiple agencies
received cancellation and suspension orders over consecutive years, indicating that disciplinary
action did not stop agencies from re-offending or offending in new ways.5 This preliminary data
suggests that recidivism is systemic, rather than exceptional.
Statistics on women migrant workers
Section 20 of RA8042 or the Magna Carta for Migrant Workers provides for the Establishment of
a Shared Government Information System on Migration (SGISM) that will include, but not
limited to, the following information:
(a) Masterlists of departing/arriving Filipinos;
(b) Inventory of pending legal cases involving Filipino migrant workers and other Filipino
nationals, including those serving prison terms;
Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA). n.d. “Dataset: Top Recruitment agencies with
most number of cases for the past 3 years (2012-2014).” Provided to CMA in January 2016 .
5