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The topic of this Conference, "Overseas Recruitment Procedures for Senior Officials", is definitely one of the most urgent and critical issues faced by many countries today.

I said "urgent" and "critical" because if one were to scan the pages of newspapers and news magazines of various frequencies and areas of circulation, he would, most likely, come across items the subject of which is the misfortune of some overseas workers who were made helpless victims of foreign exploitation.

The situation is made more painful due to the absence of some workable measures designed to prevent such occurences.

I have made a claim before, and I would like to make the same claim now, that the ARPLA¹ is one project whose special relevance and importance to Asia cannot be doubted. Through the years, this project has successfully met the increasing challenges of the region.

I would go to the extent of saying that only a project with an orientation similar to ARPLA's can find meaningful solutions to Asian problems because the inherent peculiarities of the region can be fully interpreted and comprehended only by those coming from the region itself. This explains why the need for this project is acutely felt more than ever in Asia today.

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*Speech delivered by Mr. Democrito T. Mendoza, President, Trade Union Congress of the Philippines, during the opening ceremony of the ILO/ARPLA Symposium on Overseas Recruitment Procedures for Senior Officials in East Asian Countries, Manila, 14 April 1980.
¹Asian Regional Project for Strengthening Labor Administration. Founded following the Second Asian Labor Minister's Conference in New Delhi in 1969, the project is assisted by the ILO.