Repatriation Of Undocumented Ofws Continues With Extension Of The Kuwait Amnesty

The repatriation of undocumented OFWs continues with the extension of the Kuwait Amnesty till April 22, 2018.

In other news, as Duterte sent this week a team of labor officials to Kuwait to seek greater protection for migrant workers, Kuwait has said it is investigating reported deaths and abuses, and insisted there were only a small number considering that there are more than 250,000 Filipinos working in the country.

In the meantime, the Philippines Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) Saturday said the OFW reportedly found comatose in a hospital in Kuwait, which had gone viral on Facebook, is safe and now back home in the Philippines.

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DFA said investigations conducted by the Philippine Embassy in Kuwait and Riyadh found that the Facebook post on OFW Noraisa Manambit, working in Damman, Saudi Arabia, was false.

Both embassy teams worked closely with the local authorities of Kuwait and Riyadh looking for Manambit, who was reportedly comatose in Kuwait’s Farwaniya Hospital. According to DFA, officers from the Philippine Embassy in Kuwait combed both Farwaniya and the Amiri hospitals only to discover there was no patient by that name.

The Philippine Embassy in Riyadh, on the other hand, conducted its own extensive investigation and found Manambit was in the custody of the Saudi Immigration in Dammam for normal and orderly repatriation with the assistance of Embassy personnel. Labor and Employment Secretary Silvestre Bello III said the decision on whether to lift or not the total deployment ban on OFWs to Kuwait rests with President Duterte. “The President will be the one to decide on that (lifting),” he said.

Bello said as of now they are waiting if the Kuwaiti government will sign the Memorandum of Agreement on the protection of OFWs. “If they will do that the President might lift the deployment ban,” he said.

The DOLE already sent a Technical Working Group to Kuwait to finalize the Memorandum of Understanding with Kuwait for the safety, security and welfare of Filipino workers.

Undersecretary Claro Arellano, the head of the group, revealed that one of the salient features of the proposed MoU which they will push in their negotiations with their Kuwaiti counterparts is to allow OFWs to have their passports in their possessions.

SOURCE : ARABTIMES

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