PHL officials meet Filipino community in Kuwait amid deployment ban



DOLE Undersecretary for Workers Protection, Human Resource, and Internal Auditing Services Cluster Ciriaco A. Lagunzad III speaks during a meeting with the Filipino community at the Philippine embassy in Kuwait City on February 24, 2018. Yasser Al-Zayyat/AFP
DOLE Undersecretary for Workers Protection, Human Resource, and Internal Auditing Services Cluster Ciriaco A. Lagunzad III speaks during a meeting with the Filipino community at the Philippine embassy in Kuwait City on February 24, 2018. Yasser Al-Zayyat/AFP

KUWAIT CITY, Kuwait — A delegation of Philippine labor officials was in Kuwait City Sunday to assess the impact of a new ban on Filipinos working in the emirate, a source of much-needed remittances.
President Rodrigo Duterte earlier this month announced a departure ban for Filipinos planning to work in Kuwait, after the murder there of 29-year-old Joanna Demafelis.
Her body was found in a freezer and a Lebanese-Syrian couple suspected of her murder have been arrested in the Syrian capital, Damascus, after an Interpol manhunt.
Labor Undersecretary Ciriaco Lagunzad said the delegation was looking at the side effects of the ban, which will likely impact many families dependent on remittances from relatives who work in Kuwait.
Speaking on the sidelines of a meeting with the Filipino community in Kuwait, he told AFP the ban would not be lifted until his government secured safety guarantees.
"I would like to find out from the associations, the organizations of Filipinos whether the other Filipinos working here are in good condition and safe," he said.
"It cannot be business as usual. Unless the conditions change—and that will be subject to negotiations—the ban stays."
Among the key demands are that Filipino workers be allowed to keep their cellphones and passports, which currently can be confiscated by employers.
Anna del Mundo, who met the delegation at the Philippines' embassy on Saturday, said her recruitment agency had already been hurt by the ban.
She said the agency had hired around 100 nurses for a Kuwait hospital but they were now stuck home due to the ban.
Anna Bunda, who also works in the recruiting sector, said she planned to lobby the Philippines' Overseas Workers Welfare Administration to lift the ban for skilled workers—who she said enjoy greater protection under a different entry visa.
"There are a lot of opportunities for the Filipinos" in Kuwait, she said. "I hope that the government will hear us."
But the attendees also included domestic workers, tied to their employers by the "kafala" or sponsorship system prevalent in the Middle East.
"I had to go to the embassy because I was in a car accident and my sponsor demanded that I pay for the treatment," said a former maid, who said she fled her employer.
A second labor delegation tasked with negotiating a bilateral treaty for domestic workers is slated to arrive in Kuwait City next week, Philippines Ambassador Renato Pedro Ovila told AFP.
Authorities in Manila say some 252,000 Filipinos work in Kuwait, many as maids. They are among over two million employed in the region, whose remittances are a lifeline to the Philippine economy. — Agence France-Presse

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

PCG: China’s bullying in West Philippine Sea undermines international law --- Ghio Ong - The Philippine Star

MANILA, Philippines — Letting China sustain its aggression in the West Philippine Sea would make other countries doubt the strength of international law currently being asserted by the Philippines, Commodore Jay Tarriela of the Philippine Coast Guard (PCG) said. “Allowing China to blatantly disregard the established rules-based order threatens the very foundation that we all depend on,” he wrote in a post on X last Tuesday. He added, “If we permit this, countries worldwide may forget why this order was created in the first place. Nations could begin to doubt the significance of adhering to international law if powerful bullies can easily violate it.” Tarriela also said defiance of other countries to a rules-based order would result in the prevalence of cruelty. He wrote, “This could lead us back to a time when might makes right, undermining the global structures that keep human greed, savagery and barbarism in check. Such a scenario would not only invite challenges from aggressive ...
Read more

China ships maintain presence in key West Philippine Sea areas --- Michael Punongbayan - The Philippine Star

STAR / Michael Varcas MANILA, Philippines — While Chinese vessels in the West Philippine Sea (WPS) have decreased in number, they have maintained a presence in three key land features where naval and coast guard ships have intensified operations in the past seven days, according to the Philippine Navy. Latest monitoring by the Philippine Navy showed armed ships of the People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) maintaining a menacing presence around the grounded BRP Sierra Madre in Ayungin Shoal, Panatag Shoal and Escoda Shoal. According to the Philippine Navy, there are 17 Chinese military vessels and 28 China Coast Guard (CCG) boats spotted inside the country’s exclusive economic zone (EEZ) between Sept. 23 and 30, or one vessel more than in the previous week Sept.17-23. Five of the warships were seen roaming around the vicinity of Escoda Shoal, along with 10 CCG vessels and 12 maritime militia vessels (MMVs). There are also two PLAN ships in Ayungin Shoal as well as 10 CCG boats and 12...
Read more

Social media seen as cause of rising intermarriages --- Helen Flores - The Philippine Star

MANILA, Philippines — The Commission on Filipinos Overseas (CFO) sees social media as the main reason for the rising number of Filipinos marrying or becoming partners of foreign nationals. In 2022, the CFO recorded 6,854 marriages or partnerships with foreign nationals, a 40.1 percent increase from the 4,891 “intermarriages” recorded in 2021. “First of all, what we see in the increase in the marriage rate of Filipinos or Filipinos with foreign partners is because of social media, (that) is number one; matchings; letters, introduction of their friends,” CFO chairperson Romulo Arugay said at the Bagong Pilipinas Ngayon public briefing yesterday. Arugay said the agency has been registering a high number of intermarriages since 2007, but the figures went down during the COVID-19 pandemic. From over 6,500 Filipinos who married foreign nationals, only 600 are men, he said. Most of them are married to Americans, Japanese, Germans, Canadians and Australians, Arugay said. Arugay warned Fi...
Read more