Filipino Ambassador Ezzedin H. Tago said on Thursday that it had not received any request from Labor Secretary Rosalinda Baldoz for background information or comment on Dr. Mohd Ali Carlito L. Astillero, who had been recommended as a member of the directors' board of the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA).OFW POEA
“I assure you the Philippine Embassy had not received any request from Secretary Baldoz of the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) on your appointment as POEA board member,” Tago said in an email to Astillero, who left the Kingdom for good last year after working for 25 years in a local hospital in Riyadh.
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Tago added that he did not also know that Astillero was a candidate for the position.
“Before blaming or pointing the finger at any person, I would like to verify first if anyone from the other agencies in Riyadh had received such a request or sent an unsolicited comment or reservation on your appointment,” Tago said.
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Tago was reacting to an email from Astillero, who said: “I was shocked to hear from Secretary Baldoz during our meeting on March 14 that the Philippine Embassy in Riyadh, the institution that honored me as Outstanding Filipino in Saudi Arabia in 1990, blocked my appointment to the POEA board.”
In an attempt to justify his nomination to the POEA board, Astillero said the hospital he used to work for in the Saudi capital had not done anything wrong to its Filipino staff.
“The hospital I was working for was one of the best hospitals in Saudi Arabia, giving wages on time and all benefits,” he said.
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He added: “It's unfair for the embassy staff to report to the POEA Governing Board through Secretary Baldoz that I have not done anything to resolve cases of complaints involving the hospital's Filipino staff.”
Astillero added, however, that if there was really a report to the POEA from a member of the Philippine Embassy, he knew Tago did not have anything to do with it.
Earlier, Astillero was also nominated as administrator of the Overseas Workers Welfare Administration (OWWA), but he failed to get the position.
