By Leslie Ann Aquino
Labor Secretary Silvestre Bello III on Thursday challenged ACTS-OFW Rep. Aniceto Bertiz III to prove that he got a single peso from the overseas Filipino worker (OFW) identification (ID) card project.
Labor Secretary Silvestre Bello III
(ROBINSON NIÑAL JR./Presidential Photo / MANILA BULLETIN)
"If Congressman Bertiz can identify anyone in the department, or anyone among all the agencies na nagbigay sa akin isa piso, I will immediately resign," he told Dobol B sa News TV.
"I will challenge him na kapag hindi niya ma prove umalis na siya diyan," added Bello.
Earlier, Bertiz accused DOLE of charging P720 per OFW ID or the iDOLE.
But Bello said the ID is free and those asking for payments were not authorized to do so.
"Hindi authorized yun...Yang DOLE card na yan ay libre kaya kung may sumisingil peke yan," he said.
The labor chief revealed that he put the project on hold after learning that some personalities wanted to earn from it.
"Meron nag alok ng pera para dyan. Pinaghahatian. Sabi ko alam niyo, itong iDOLE para sa mga OFW. Dapat walang gastos ang gobyerno at lalong walang gastos ang OFW. Kaya kung ganyan plano niyo, ang mabuti pa scrap natin. Which I did," Bello said.
"Sabi ko i scrap natin ito until we can find a system that will provide an iDOLE card to our OFWs at no expense to the government and more especially no expense to our OFWs," he added.