… Among them was Marco* from Paete, Laguna who, in early 2023, came across a social media post from the Paete local government unit (LGU) about an opportunity to work as a farmer in Korea.

Marco had never worked abroad before. It was his wife Melanie* who worked overseas, while Marco took care of their young children back home. But Marco could not pass up a chance to earn P85,000 a month, or a little over 2 million Korean won as provided by the contract he signed. It was a far cry from the P15,000 he earned working as a security guard.

Expenses before departure reached up to P60,000, scraped from the family’s savings. These included visa expenses, travel insurance, and a medical checkup. This was separate from the P70,000 in total processing fees Melanie had to wire to a Philippine bank account designated by a team of Korean brokers in the Philippines after Marco was already deployed.

…If the workers did not finish their contracts, their assigned “guarantor” would have to cough up P500,000…

Rappler has tried to reach out to OCI through contact details given to us by the Paete LGU. Its representatives Choi Yoon-ji and Lim Jin-ho have not responded. We will update this story once they do…