Fake employment certificate: Nurses Going to Work in Saudi-Arabia Warn Against Using Fake Documents

-Some agencies recruiting Nurses to Saudi Arabia forge documents especially employment certificates
-These forgeries are later detected after the nurses have started working in Saudi Arabia for months
-The affected nurses are then thrown into jail and deported after paying heavy fines

Don’t let those infamous “Recto” credentials get you into trouble abroad.

This was ACTS-OFW Rep. Aniceto “John” Bertiz III’s warning to Filipino nurses bound for Saudi Arabia, saying the Kingdom doesn’t fool around when it comes to falsification of documents.

He said this includes cases of handing in falsified credentials such padded certificates of prior employment, which is a standard requirement for Filipino nurses who want to work overseas.

“In Saudi Arabia alone, we’ve responded to more than 100 requests for assistance from Filipino nurses who were arrested and jailed on charges of tendering fabricated eligibility papers,” Bertiz said.

The misrepresentations were discovered and the nurses were caught after they had spent months on their jobs in Riyadh, Jeddah and Dammam.

“We’ve also had cases of nurses with tampered papers who were either acquitted or deported after paying a stiff fine,” Bertiz said.

Bertiz attributed many of the cases of fraud to crooked Philippine recruitment agencies.

“If the nurse for instance lacks the required duration of occupational experience, the dishonest recruiters themselves will produce the spurious papers, just so they can deploy (the nurse) and make money out of the job placement,” Bertiz said.

“Sasabihin nila sa nurse, ‘Kami na ang bahala dyan’ o kaya ‘Gagawan na lang namin ng paraan yan’ (They will tell the nurse, ‘We’ll take care of it’ or ‘We’ll find a way’),” he said.

The Recto district in Manila is widely-known as the go-to place for the fabrication of a wide range of documents and certificates.

Unscrupolous recruitment firms

In at least two cases reported to ACTS-OFW, the jailed nurses claimed that their recruiters – FEMEX Recruitment Agency Inc. and MSL Star Human Resource Corp. – instructed them to submit the fake documents and even facilitated the acquisition of the bogus papers, according to House Resolution (HR) 1118.

Bertiz filed the resolution to enable a congressional inquiry into the proliferation of forged credentials to comply with the requirements of foreign employers.

“Recruiters are supposed to validate the papers of job applicants, and not facilitate fraud,” the minority bloc congressman noted.

He said the Saudi Labor Ministry can be rigorous in fact-checking the qualifications of highly skilled professionals such as doctors, nurses and engineers.

Bertiz said ACTS-OFW has been working closely with the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) to find ways to resolve the cases of the nurses behind bars.

“In fact, we raised the matter of the detained nurses when Saudi Prince and Interior Minister Abdulaziz bin Saud bin Naif visited Malacañang on March 19, and the Prince was kind enough to assure President [Rodrigo] Duterte that they would look into the concern,” Bertiz said.

Bertiz also said he has sought the help of the Saudi ambassador to Manila, Abdullah Bin Nasser Al Bussairy.

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Manila Times