THE Department of Labor and Employment (Dole) is now considering preventing Filipinos from looking for job opportunities in other countries that also have rampant cases of maltreatment and abuse among overseas Filipino workers (OFWs), Malacañang said Saturday, March 3.
"The Department of Labor [and Employment] is now studying if there are other countries, where we have to stop the deployment of our fellow countrymen [who want to work abroad]," Presidential Spokesperson Harry Roque Jr. told reporters in Zamboanga del Norte.
This developed nearly two weeks after President Rodrigo Duterte threatened to expand the coverage of deployment ban of Filipino workers to other nations, where many OFWs are reportedly suffering because of inhumane treatment of their employers.
Duterte, during an event held in Manila on February 20, revealed his plan for a widened deployment ban, as he could not stomach the "cruel" treatment of foreign employers towards Filipino migrant workers.
Dole Secretary Silvestre Bello III, in a statement on Wednesday, February 28, said the deployment ban may also be imposed to other nations in the Middle East, which "fail to assure and strengthen the protection of the rights and welfare of OFWs."
Bello added that the Philippine government sought to end the "kafala" practice, a sponsorship system from which the Arab sponsor-employer has the entire control over the mobility of the migrant worker.
"For example, in Saudi, it is a common malpractice that the employer trades or switch their worker to other employers," the Labor chief said Wednesday.
"That's what they call the kafala system and it is always for consideration. We will impose the same restrictions like in Kuwait and will consider deployment ban, if strengthened protection of our OFWs was not assured," he added.
Bello said a team led by Labor Undersecretary Ciriaco Lagunzad was sent to the Middle East to monitor the situation of OFWs and attend to their needs.
Lagunzad's team also flew to the Middle East to assess possible recommendations on how to protect Filipinos working and residing there.
Duterte first ordered the Dole to enforce a total deployment ban of Filipino workers to Kuwait, following the brutal death of OFW Joanna Daniela Demafelis, who was found stored in a freezer in an abandoned apartment in the Arab nation.
Roque reiterated that the deployment ban to Kuwait stays, even after Demafelis' killers and recruiters are now in the custody of authorities.
"The President's decision is to still not deploy our fellow countrymen to Kuwait, as long as we do not get justice for Joanna [Demafelis]," he said. (VoxPop Philippines)
