POEA to recruitment agencies: Do your part in repatriating OFWs from Libya

While the Philippine government will shoulder the cost of repatriating overseas Filipino workers from strife-torn Libya, recruitment agencies that deployed the OFWs there should also do their part to ensure the affected workers' welfare.


The Philippine Overseas Employment Administration issued this reminder Tuesday as the Philippine government continued to take steps to ensure the safety of OFWs in Libya.

"(E)ven as the Philippine government will shoulder costs of immediate repatriation of OFWs in Libya, Philippine recruitment agencies should be responsible enough to arrange for repatriation of their deployed workers in coordination with their respective insurance companies under the law on compulsory OFW insurance," POEA administrator Hans Leo Cacdac said in a post on his Twitter account.

The Philippine government has declared crisis alert level 3 all over Libya due to the ongoing civil unrest there that started when armed men stormed the Libyan parliament last month amid fast-spreading anti-government protests across the country.
Alert level 3 calls on the more than 13,000 Filipinos to leave Libya to avoid being caught in the armed conflict.

Cacdac said Labor Secretary Rosalinda Baldoz had instructed the POEA to coordinate with the recruitment agencies "for purposes of closely monitoring their deployed workers and reporting to the POEA the status and working conditions of these workers."

He added that the POEA, which is under the Department of Labor and Employment, shall also "remind concerned recruitment agencies with respect to their primary responsibility to immediately act on their deployed workers who wish to be voluntarily repatriated." 

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