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[av_heading heading=’Duterte: ‘Filipinos no slaves’’ tag=’h3′ style=’blockquote modern-quote’ size=’30’ subheading_active=’subheading_below’ subheading_size=’18’ padding=’10’ color=” custom_font=” av-medium-font-size-title=” av-small-font-size-title=” av-mini-font-size-title=” av-medium-font-size=” av-small-font-size=” av-mini-font-size=” admin_preview_bg=”][/av_heading]
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February 11, 2018
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MANILA – The “Filipino is not a slave to anyone, anywhere and everywhere,” a fuming President Rodrigo Duterte said.
Duterte was reacting to the death of Ilongga overseas Filipino worker Joanna Daniela Demafelis, who was found dead in a freezer in Kuwait, and the “inhumane treatment of Filipino workers” in that country.
“Every unlawful physical injury that is inflicted on an OFW is an injury that I personally bear as the head of this republic,” he told a news conference in Davao City.
Duterte mentioned cases of violence against several OFWs in Kuwait, including one who was executed for allegedly killing an employer’s child and another who died of severe beating from an employer.
According to the President, 82 Filipino deaths were recorded in Kuwait in 2016 and the number increased to 103 last year.
“It seems that our government is an inutile as our foreign workers are helpless in this present state of things,” he lamented.
“This is a national shame, and yet we proclaim our OFWs [as] modern heroes. Our words and action simply do not match,” he said.
Previously the Labor department suspended the processing and issuance of overseas employment certificates to Kuwait-bound Filipino workers.
Labor secretary Silvestre Bello III recommended that the suspension stays as investigation into the deaths of seven other OFWs last December and this January continues.
The Kuwaiti government will have to sign a memorandum of understanding providing additional protection for OFWs for the ban to be lifted, Bello said. The MOU has been there for three years already, he added.
Duterte threatened to completely ban the deployment of OFWs to Kuwait if the violence and deaths continue.
“Do not give us back a battered worker or a mutilated corpse,” he said. “We do not intend to offend any government or anyone but if a ban is what is needed, let it be so.”
“All I ask for our overseas Filipino workers is that their dignity is honored and their human rights upheld and respected,” Duterte added. (Philippine News Agency/PN)
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