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BY ADRIAN STEWART CO and PRINCE GOLEZ
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February 12, 2018
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President orders total OFW deployment ban to Kuwait
MANILA – The bizarre death of Ilongga domestic worker Joanna Daniela Demafelis in Kuwait has shaken President Rodrigo Duterte.
The government will prohibit the deployment of workers to Kuwait, according to the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE).
“This time, what the President (Rodrigo Duterte) wants is a total deployment ban,” said Labor secretary Silvestre Bello III yesterday.
DOLE will issue an order on the matter today.
The 29-year-old Demafelis of Sara, Iloilo was found stuffed in a freezer in an abandoned apartment last week. But the President also noted the still unresolved deaths of other overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) in the Gulf state – 103 in 2017, up from 82 the previous year.
“We send to you a Filipino worker, hale and hearty, determined to work his heart out to give his family a decent and comfortable life in the Philippines. Do not give us back a battered worker or a mutilated corpse,” the President said in Davao City.
In January, the Labor department suspended the processing and issuance of overseas employment certificates to Kuwait-bound Filipino workers.
“I was talking to the President, sabi ko, ‘Boss baka hindi kailangan ban, baka pwede na iyong suspension (order) ko,’” said Bello. “‘Hindi,’ sabi niya. Iyon po ang direktiba ng ating Pangulo sa amin, and by (Monday) I’m going to issue the order.”
In a speech in Davao City late Friday night, Duterte said Demafelis had torture marks and appeared to have been strangled.
According to Bello, Duterte might lift the ban if Kuwait signs a memorandum of understanding (MOU) on the protection of OFWs.
Under the deal employers will be barred from confiscating OFW passports and transferring Filipino employees to another workplace, Bello said.
The Labor secretary warned that the deployment ban might extend to other Middle East countries if a pending review finds that Filipino workers are not being treated well there.
Demafelis left the Philippines for Kuwait on May 18, 2014. Her employers were a couple – a Lebanese man with a Syrian wife now being hunted by the Kuwaiti police.
On Friday Duterte asked Filipinos in Kuwait to return home within 72 hours. He said he will ask airlines to provide free flights for those who want to be repatriated.
But Bello clarified that this is only for OFWs who are distressed, given amnesty or who simply want to return to the Philippines.
“Doon naman sa mga may maayos na trabaho or mababait na amo, wala naman siguro tayong problema,” the Labor secretary said.
Around 250,000 documented OFWs and some 50,000 undocumented Filipino workers are currently working in Kuwait, based on data from the Labor department.
The last time Demafelis contacted her family was in 2016. She told them she planned to extend her stay in Kuwait.
Her sister Joyce said Demafelis never told them she was being maltreated by her employers but they wondered why she would call them only thrice a year since 2014.
‘REVIEW POLICIES’
Following Demafelis’ death, Sen. Joseph Victor Ejercito urged the government to review all deployment policies, including any bilateral agreement, to ensure that OFWs are protected by their host countries.
Kuwait has not yet signed an MOU designed to protect OFWs, he noted.
Ejercito condemned the death of Demafelis and several other OFWs in Kuwait.
“We value our foreign relations with the people of Kuwait but we cannot stand idly by as our kababayans suffer from inhuman treatment,” he said.
What happened to Demafelis “lends urgency to our task of sustaining economic growth and providing more employment so that our people would not have to risk their lives working in other countries,” Ejercito said.
Sen. Juan Edgardo Angara, on the other hand, sought the provision of livelihood aid to distressed OFWs who will be repatriated from Kuwait.
“Bukod sa pagsiguro sa kanilang kaligtasan, dapat ay may trabaho at tulong pangkabuhayan na naghihintay para sa [kanila],” Angara said.
In addition, Sen. Leila de Lima said concerned agencies must “swiftly” carry out plans to assist OFWs displaced by the diplomatic row between Qatar and neighboring Arab countries.
The Labor and Foreign Affairs departments are “expected to exemplify preparedness in providing assistance…including possible repatriation and reintegration,” she said.
Saudi Arabia and six other Arab nations severed diplomatic ties with Qatar, which they accused of supporting Islamists./PN
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