The Department of Labor and Employment suspended last January 19 the deployment of Overseas Filipino Workers (OFWs) in Kuwait in the Middle East, following reports that seven migrant workers had recently been killed. There were no details of the OFWs’ deaths, but Secretary Silvestre Bello III saw it fit to order the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA) to stop the processing of the overseas employment certificates of all Kuwaiti-bound Filipino workers.
The secretary said he had taken immediate action as he had been told by President Duterte that he had received reports of Filipino workers killed due to maltreatment or abuse by their employers. He assured that his suspension order will be lifted if investigation by Kuwaiti official clears the employers in the death of the Filipino workers.
Five days later, on January 24, speaking at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport as he prepared to leave for India, the President took another big step on the Kuwait affair. He said he had just been informed of the rape of a Filipino woman, who then committed suicide. He threatened to pull out all OFWS now in Kuwait if he received a report of one more incident of abuse.
The President called on Kuwait and other Middle East countries to treat their Filipino workers “as human beings.” He said, “We are poor, we may need your help, but we will not do it at the expense of the dignity of the Filipino.”
The remittances of our OFWs have long been a major support of the national economy. These remittances totalled $32.8 billion in 2017, a 4.5 percent increase from 2016. They have made the Philippines the third biggest remittance-receiving country in the world, after India ($65.4 billion) and China ($62.9 billion), according to the World Bank.
Thousands of Filipino workers continue to leave the country every day, contributing to the growth of their host countries around the world. They do so because the present state of the Philippine economy is such that there are not enough local jobs for all Filipinos seeking employment.
Our national goal is make overseas employment no longer a necessity for Filipinos but a choice. Our professionals should be able to live and work overseas to improve themselves in their fields – in science and medicine, in the fast developing field of computers, in universities and research centers, in the construction of pioneering and trend-setting buildings.
In the coming months and years, the national government expects to carry out a nationwide program of infrastructure – highways, bridges, railroads, subways, airports, seaports—which will need workers of all kinds. These infrastructures, in turn, will stimulate other economic activities – manufacturing, commerce, agriculture, services, etc. Many of our OFWS will need to come home for all these undertakings.
In the meantime, we commend the swift and decisive action taken by President Duterte and Secretary Bello on the reported killing of several Filipino workers and rape of a Filipina in Kuwait. For the sake of international amity and cooperation, we hope the Kuwaiti government will take swift action on the cases.
Whatever eventually ensues from these cases, we must focus on a program of national development that will provide employment to Filipinos right here in their own land, so that overseas work becomes, as our desired goal, a matter of choice, no longer of necessity.
