Another batch of overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) flew in from Kuwait on Wednesday, comprising of 332 household service workers in two separate Philippine Airlines and Gulf Air flights.
Some 2,500 OFWs have returned from Kuwait since the repatriation started last Monday.
The Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) Undersecretary Ernesto C. Abella was on hand at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (Naia) to welcome the returning OFWs. The former presidential spokesman promised the returning OFWs assistance from the Duterte administration.
“President Rodrigo Duterte is doing everything to help OFWs to find other jobs in China and even in Russia,” Abella said.
Labor Secretary Silvestre H. Bello III, meanwhile, announced that vacationing OFWs and seafarers are exempted from the Department of Labor and Employment’s existing deployment ban in Kuwait.
Bello added he had issued Administrative Order (AO) 54-A on Wednesday, which states the guidelines for the total deployment ban in Kuwait.
Under the AO 54-A, the ban will no longer apply for vacationing OFWs or balik manggagawa in the Philippines and will be returning to the same employer in Kuwait to finish their contracts.
Federation of Free Workers President Jose Sonny G. Matula, meanwhile, emphasized that “the dignity of a Filipina house workers is equal to the dignity of the queen of England or any prince of Kuwait.”
Matula, a veteran lawyer and labor law professor, also backed Duterte’s OFW deployment ban, saying the purpose is “to give pressure to the government of Kuwait [in order] to give dignity to our workers” and not exactly make the household workers jobless when they return to the country.
He noted that “[i]n the exercise of the police power of the state, President Duterte has the power to ban the deployment of OFWs to other countries.”
Under the social justice and protection to labor provisions, the 1987 Constitution mandates that the state shall protect Filipino workers, local and overseas, Matula said.
He emphasized that “[t]he misfortune of [Flor] Contemplacion, the fate of [Delia] Maga and [Sarah] Balabagan, plus the woes of house service helpers in Kuwait and recent death of Joanna Dimafelis [who was] discovered in a freezer [in Kuwait are hard to ignore.”
“Knowing these tales of oppression and exploitation forced President Duterte to take [such a] drastic action to ban [the deployment of OFWs to] Kuwait. [The President] did the right thing to protect our workers and the dignity of our nation,” Matula said.
He clarified the deployment ban in Kuwait will now only cover new hires, “without distinction as to skill, profession, or type of work.”
With Samuel Medenilla, Nelson S. Badilla