Hotels may stop hosting OFWs on OWWA’s P241-million dues

Many of the hotels in Metro Manila, Tagaytay and Cebu are now unable to pay the salaries of their employees, due to the increasing unpaid debt of the Overseas Workers Welfare Administration (OWWA) to them.

According to Hotel Sales and Marketing Association (HSMA) President Christine Ann U. Ibarreta, as of October 30, Owwa owes some P241.17 million to hotels being used as temporary quarantine establishments for returning overseas Filipino workers (OFWs).

These hotels include: Sofitel Philippine Plaza at P45 million; Golden Phoenix, P36 million; Seda Residences Makati, P9.5 million; Astorias Ortigas and Makati, P11 million; Linden Suites, P19.3 million; Luxent Hotel, P12.9 million; Ace Hotels, P6 million; Quest Tagaytay, P3.2 million; Discovery Suites, P3 million; Hotel Rembrandt, P7 million; Microtel/Tryp by Wyndham, P26.5 million; Midas Hotel, P4.1 million; Azumi Boutique Hotel, P3.5 million; One Pacific Place, P11.7 million; Quest Hotel Cebu, P15.7 million; Crimson Hotel Filinvest, P5 million; Marco Polo Cebu, P473,000; and Chateau Royale, P4 million.

This is the second documented case of unpaid government debts by a government agency to the private sector, following PhilHealth’s P1.1-billion widely reported arrears to the Philippine Red Cross. The private humanitarian organization had to halt testing returning OFWs for Covid-19 due to the unpaid debt.

Asked whether HSMA would follow Red Cross’s footsteps and stop accepting OFWs as Owwa guests, Ibarreta told the BusinessMirror, “We will try to accommodate their needs, but at some point, we might have to do just that if Owwa continues to refuse paying our hotels. Our establishments need the income to pay our employees.”

She added that Owwa has already set up a task force within Owwa “to expedite payments, but there has been no change” in the pace by which the hotels are paid.

In her letter to Tourism Secretary Bernadette Romulo Puyat dated November 2, 2020, Ibarreta narrated the difficulties HSMA member hotels have been encountering in seeking payment from Owwa, adding that the group has been  persistently  requesting administrator Hans Cacdac, and other agency officials “Judge [Rodrigo Flores] Pascual, Hermie Mendoza, and Ronald Mina to help us in facilitating payment for these listed hotels. [Even when] they pay, they [Owwa] don’t even pay the amount that is requested by the hotels to survive.”

She added, “There were companies which were unable to give the employees salaries because they were waiting for Owwa’s payments.”

She noted that the constant audit by Owwa’s finance department of billing statements have already become “unreasonable.” For instance, she said, “Guest checks in September 20-22, as indicated in the registration form, but checks out a day or two after, when they receive their swab tests. [Owwa’s] finance questions that transaction even if the folio and swab test indicates the date of the [test] result.  The registration card and folio don’t match because the swab result came in after [the registered stay].”

She stressed, all these have been explained to Owwa’s finance staff assigned to hotels, and were provided certifications of the delayed arrival of the Covid-19 test results of the guests.

“How can hotels survive if Owwa does not pay us? We want to accommodate and support them but they only think of themselves. How about the hotels which provided what they needed?”

Ibarreta informed Romulo Puyat that the delays in payment have been “ongoing” since the beginning of the Covid-19 lockdowns and “in spite of almost daily dialogue with Owwa, they have not been seriously heeding our call.”

In a separate letter to Tourism Promotions Board chief operating officer Ma. Anthonette Velasco-Allones, the HSMA president also cited, in other cases, when an OFW has been stranded because there is no flight back to his home province, “if there is one or two cases [of that nature] per batch [of billing statements], Owwa’s finance department holds the whole amount [billed]. We have explained this over and over again, even provided certification that the guest checked out on the date indicated in the folio.”

This article originally appeared on https://businessmirror.com.ph/2020/11/04/hotels-may-stop-hosting-ofws-on-owwas-p241-million-arrears/