The passenger plane carrying the last batch of some 200 overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) touched down at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (Naia) at 6:30 a.m. on Monday from Kuwait, bringing the grand total to 5,066 that were repatriated from the Gulf country, including 517 infants.
President Duterte told OFWs to stop working in Kuwait in February following the discovery of a Filipino maid’s corpse stuffed inside the freezer of her employers.
Joanna Demafelis, 29, who worked for a married couple in Kuwait in 2014 was found stuffed into a freezer in an abandoned rental property and police believe she was tortured or strangled to death.
As murder charges were filed against the suspects, Duterte has issued a ban on workers being sent to the Arab nation and has offered to fly thousands of them home for free.
The Demafelis family declined the offer of “blood money” from the suspects, saying they will fight until the end to bring justice for her death.
Joanna’s brother, Joejet Demafelis, said they will reject any offer of blood money or financial compensation for the brutal death of his sister in Kuwait.
Foreign Secretary Alan Peter S. Cayetano and Party-list Rep. Aniceto D. Bertiz III of ACTS OFW welcome the group at the Naia Terminal 1.
Cayetano told the OFWs that their labors have supported the country’s economy and said President Duterte gave him specific instruction to assist all OFWs anywhere in the world “no matter what.”
He also said the President ordered all government agencies not to spare any amount helping any OFW in distress.
“We are also quietly working on Filipino nationals with pending cases around the world and we don’t want any publicity because it sometimes causes ‘diplomatic hiccups,’ making it appear that the Philippines is complaining against those countries,” Cayetano added.
Special Assistant to the President Bong Go quietly assisted recently Filipino fishermen who were jailed in Indonesia, Cayetano said.
Duterte also gave P600 million more to the OFW fund, raising the seed money to P1 billion from previous P400 million. “The DFA [Department of Foreign Affairs] will shoulder the expenses of Filipino noncontract workers, while the Department of Labor and Employment will shoulder OFWs expenses,” Cayetano said.
“The President is trying his best to improve the economy so that Filipinos would no longer leave behind their families to work in other countries,” the foreign secretary told the OFWs.
The Philippine Embassy in Kuwait assisted the repatriation of the OFWs boarding them on Philippine Airlines planes, while others were taken aboard Qatar Airways flights.
The repatriated Filipinos have availed themselves of the extended amnesty program of the Kuwaiti government including undocumented nationals.
The Philippine government started the repatriation program in Kuwait on February 11, assisted by a team from the DFA led by Undersecretary for Migrant Workers Affairs Sarah Lou Y. Arriola, who went there to supervise the repatriation.