Kasama Connect

06/08/2026

Ladies and Gentlemen,

the founder of Onlinejobs.ph, John Jonas.

What are you?
A f**kin’ economist now?

06/08/2026

For the next week we’re about to do a MASSIVE callout on this little boy.

06/08/2026

These are not our words.

These are OnlineJobs.ph’s own words, pulled directly from their FAQs and terms.

Slide after slide, they admit the business model:

• First, sell access behind a paywall: “You can’t see applicants’ contact info or communicate with them until you upgrade… Plus, it’s how we make money and how we stay in business.”

• Then, once you’ve paid, they rebrand themselves as “only the connector” while telling you that:

• You can set hours, demand full‑time work, require exclusivity, provide equipment, even pay benefits

• Workers are still labeled “INDEPENDENT CONTRACTORS”

• “There’s no Employer of Record needed… There’s no legal reporting or requirements from any government we’ve dealt with… THERE ARE NO LEGAL REQUIREMENTS!”

Read that again:
• Full‑time hours
• Direct control over schedule and tools
• Ongoing, exclusive relationship
• But the platform insists:

“You’re not responsible if they don’t pay their taxes, they are.”

“There are no legal requirements.”

In any serious discussion of business ethics, worker protection, or global labor governance, this is a massive red flag.

Why?

• It encourages misclassification. Under Philippine guidance and global best practice, if you control schedule, ongoing work, and wages, you are drifting into “employee” territory, not genuine independent contracting.

• It normalizes “control without accountability” by telling foreign clients they can manage people like employees while pretending there is no employer, no reporting, and no tax or compliance duty anywhere in the system.

• It pushes all legal, tax, and risk exposure down to individual Filipino workers, who are the least resourced party in the entire chain.

In the rules of business and a world of governance and regulation, we would never accept a bank, a payroll provider, or an Employer‑of‑Record saying:

“We make money from the relationship, but we have no responsibilities, and actually… there are no laws.”

Yet that is effectively what this model tells global clients about cross‑border labor.

Access sold. Responsibility removed.

If this is the standard for remote hiring in the Philippines, then the standard is broken—and it’s time we say so, loudly - “F**k Onlinejobs.ph and John Jonas.

06/07/2026

Kasama

The Kasama Connect Field Manual v1.0 is now live—and it’s available only inside our Subscribers-Only Group.

This is our internal playbook for building a safer, worker-first marketplace for Filipino virtual professionals and the clients who actually value their work.

If you’re already a paid subscriber, log into the Subscribers Group to access the Field Manual v1.0 and start going through it today.

If you’re not a subscriber yet, hit “Subscribe” on our page to join the group and unlock the Field Manual plus all upcoming member-only resources.

— Alistair Mercado
Founder, Kasama Connect

06/06/2026

No agency, client, or critic has been able to refute what we’re exposing about the virtual assistant industry—because it’s built on math, law, and lived experience, not hype.

Every serious operator who sees our model understands the same truth: the way forward isn’t another middleman—it’s Kasama Connect, a Filipino-built fintech and governance platform that puts virtual professionals and ethical clients on equal ground.

06/06/2026

At Kasama Connect, one of the most common questions we get is: “How do you actually enforce an ethical rate floor in a platform?”

The short answer is simple: you build it into the system.

Most outsourcing platforms never did this. Not because it’s impossible—but because they chose not to. Instead, they allowed pricing to be dictated by open bidding, race-to-the-bottom dynamics, and arbitrary norms that were never grounded in research, labor economics, or ethical standards.

Over time, those “made-up rules” became accepted as normal.
But they were never inevitable.

When you own the platform, you control the architecture. That means you can:

• Set minimum compensation thresholds based on real data (cost of living, market benchmarks, productivity metrics)
• Prevent contracts from being created below those thresholds
• Align pricing with role type, skill level, and geographic context
• Continuously adjust floors based on transparent governance and evidence

This is what we mean by coding an ethical flow rate.

It’s not a suggestion. It’s not a guideline. It’s enforced at the system level—just like fees, payment rails, or access permissions.

And this concept isn’t new.

In the U.S., we already understand ethical floors.

We call them minimum wage laws, prevailing wage standards, and labor protections. The logic is the same: define a baseline that prevents exploitation and stabilizes the market.

The difference is that global digital labor platforms never carried those principles into their systems.
Not because they couldn’t—but because no one built it that way.

At Kasama Connect, we’re choosing to.

We believe platforms shouldn’t just facilitate transactions—they should shape fair markets.

And when you combine governance, data, and intentional design, you don’t have to rely on “hoping” for fair outcomes.

You can engineer them.

06/05/2026

VA ABUSE CASE - FROM REDDIT

"You peanuts, get monkeys."

That is what an India-based colleague working in Australia said out loud, in a meeting, about two Filipino virtual assistants hired through a Philippine agency. The post was written by a Filipino remote worker on that same team who heard the slur and had to decide what to do next.

X Filipino VAs reduced to "peanuts" - their pay weaponized as an insult against them
X Filipino workers compared to "monkeys" - dehumanizing language disguised as a joke
X The slur was said openly, in a work meeting, without consequence
X The Filipino worker who witnessed it was left questioning whether her own offense was even valid
X Two Filipino VAs were judged as "underperforming" by the same people who openly call their people peanuts and monkeys - reframe "performance issue" as "we never respected them to begin with"
X No documented manager intervention - silence from the room is its own answer

This is not an isolated case. This is a pattern.

And the pattern has an address. Walk back almost every story like this one - the slurs in meetings, the unanswered HR complaints, the "underperformer" labels slapped onto workers who were never given a fair shot - and the same name keeps surfacing: OnlineJobs.ph. The platform that funnels Filipino VAs into thousands of unmonitored client relationships, collects its fee, and turns its back. No anti-discrimination policy with teeth. No way to escalate when a coworker calls you a monkey. No advocate. OnlineJobs.ph has had over a decade to take responsibility for what happens after the click. They didn't. Kasama Connect is what taking responsibility actually looks like.

When a remote team treats your wage as a punchline and your people as primates, they were never going to coach you, mentor you, or promote you. They were going to use you until you broke and then call you "not the right fit." Cheap labor is not the problem. Cheap respect is.

At Kasama Connect, we are building the alternative:

- Zero tolerance anti-racism and anti-harassment policy with real consequences for clients
- A clear escalation path when a VA experiences discrimination - not silence, not "let it go"
- Filipino VAs treated as professionals, not as a cost-saving line item to mock
- Pay aligned with the Australian, US, and UK markets where the work is being delivered
- Performance reviewed in good faith, with coaching and feedback - not slurs labeled as critique
- A community that names this behavior for what it is: workplace abuse

To the Filipino worker who posted this: your offense is justified. You are not overreacting. You are reacting exactly the right amount to a coworker who just told the room how she really sees your people. Trust that.

To clients who hire Filipino VAs: if anyone on your team can call our workers monkeys in a meeting and keep their job - your culture is the product, and your customers will eventually see it.

We see you. We are with you. We are building something better.

Subscribe to Kasama Connect: kasamaconnect.com

Source: r/buhaydigital on Reddit

Outsource to the Philippines through the largest online marketplace for finding and hiring Filipino virtual assistants and employees.

06/05/2026

VA ABUSE CASE - FROM REDDIT

"If you want to protect your sanity, time, and hard-earned wages, keep away from this company."

A Filipino VA went public on Reddit to warn others about an Amazon-focused agency that calls itself "My Amazon Guy." What they describe is not a one-off complaint - it is a system designed to extract labor and discard people.

X Workers are routinely overworked and underpaid
X Job security depends on whether your Brand Manager personally likes you - not your performance
X The PH-based HR ignores complaints, dismisses concerns, and protects the company over the staff
X Terminations happen without due process, in violation of the company's own stated values
X When let go, workers often receive no final paycheck and no payout for accrued leave credits
X A toxic workplace driven by politics, favoritism, and constant stress
X Loyalty and hard work are punished with silence; morale is at an all-time low

This is not an isolated case. This is a pattern.

And here is the bigger pattern: an enormous share of these horror stories - including agencies built around hiring through it - trace back to OnlineJobs.ph. The platform lists Filipino workers like inventory, takes its fee, and then walks away. No enforcement of final pay. No verification of due process. No advocate when a worker is fired by text and ghosted on their last paycheck. OnlineJobs.ph has had over fifteen years to build worker protections into its model. It chose to stay a directory. Kasama Connect exists because "just a directory" is exactly how wage theft gets normalized.

Withholding final pay from a terminated worker is not "policy." It is wage theft. Firing someone because a manager personally dislikes them is not "performance management." It is abuse dressed up as professionalism. And HR teams that exist to protect the employer from the employee are not HR - they are damage control.

At Kasama Connect, we are building the alternative:

- Written contracts with clear termination terms - no surprise firings, no withheld final paychecks
- Final pay and accrued leave guaranteed and protected, even if the relationship ends
- Performance reviewed against documented goals - not whether the boss likes you that week
- An advocate VAs can escalate to when something is wrong - not an HR team built to silence them
- Transparent client matching, transparent pay, transparent expectations
- A community that refuses to let exploitation be the price of remote work

To the VA who wrote this post: thank you for speaking up. Every warning you put into the world saves the next worker from walking into the same trap.

To clients reading this: if your agency cannot pay people what they are owed on the way out, they are not running a business. They are running a wage-theft scheme with a logo.

We see you. We are with you. We are building something better.

Subscribe to Kasama Connect: kasamaconnect.com

Source: r/buhaydigital on Reddit

Outsource to the Philippines through the largest online marketplace for finding and hiring Filipino virtual assistants and employees.

06/05/2026

VA ABUSE CASE - FROM REDDIT

"I have backlogs accumulating because whenever I focus on something that isn't urgent, an urgent matter inevitably arises, causing me to push everything else aside - and this cycle repeats."

A Filipino Executive Assistant has been supporting a US-based executive for nearly TWO YEARS through an agency. What started as a normal EA role turned into something else entirely.

X Started at $7/hr, "raised" to $8.50/hr after a year of asking
X Agency bills the client $11.50/hr - they pocket $3/hr off her labor
X Now running FIVE separate operations: Business #1, Business #2, a nonprofit, property management, AND personal finances
X Trained and now manages 4 senior staff at his nonprofit - direct reports, not "assistance"
X Handles tenant disputes, overdue rent, and service vendors for his rental properties
X When she raises concerns, the executive deflects with "I believe in your potential" - using trust as a tool to load more onto her plate
X Endless urgent tasks crushing every attempt at deep work
X Job title still says "EA" - pay still says "EA" - workload says "Chief of Staff"

This is not an isolated case. This is a pattern.

And here is the deeper pattern we keep seeing: story after story like this traces back to one place - OnlineJobs.ph. A platform that lists Filipino workers like inventory, collects a one-time fee, and washes its hands of everything that happens next. No contract enforcement. No scope protection. No raise mediation. No recourse when the role quietly mutates from "EA" into "unpaid Chief of Staff." OnlineJobs.ph has had over a decade to build real worker protections. They chose not to. That is the gap Kasama Connect was built to fill.

Scope creep is wage theft. When you train staff, manage P&Ls, run KPIs across multiple businesses, and answer to tenants - that is NOT an $8.50/hr job. That's a $40-60/hr Chief of Staff role being stolen one "small task" at a time.

At Kasama Connect, we're building the alternative:

- Transparent pricing - VAs know EXACTLY what the client pays and what they take home
- Locked scopes of work - new responsibilities = renegotiated rate, in writing
- Title and pay aligned with actual duties - no more $8.50/hr Chiefs of Staff
- Direct VA-client relationships with accountability - not a lead-gen marketplace that vanishes after the hire
- Annual raises that reflect growth, not begging
- A community that has your back when scope creep starts

To the EA who wrote this post: you are NOT crazy. You are NOT being dramatic. You ARE being exploited. And you deserve every dollar your work is actually worth.

To clients reading this: if your "EA" runs your nonprofit, your rentals, AND your businesses - pay them like the executive they've become. Or lose them.

We see you. We are with you. We are building something better.

Subscribe to Kasama Connect: kasamaconnect.com

Source: r/buhaydigital on Reddit