Roque, Bello arrive from Kuwait, say MOU to protect OFWs signed

Presidential spokesman Harry Roque and Labor Secretary Silvestre Bello III, along with 87 distressed OFWs,  arrived in the country from Kuwait shortly before midnight on Saturday and announced that the proposed Philippine-Kuwait MOU to protect Filipino workers in the Gulf state has been signed by both countries.  

Copy of PHL-Kuwait MOU by gmanews on Scribd

GMA News reported Sunday morning that both officials also expressed confidence that the signing of the MOU signals the normalization of the strained relations between Kuwait and the Philippines.

The signing of the MOU hit a snag after the Philippine Department of Foreign Affairs launched a well-publicized rescue operation of distressed OFWs, a move that did not sit well with Kuwait.

Kuwait expelled the Philippine envoy and ordered the arrest of other foreign officials following the controversial rescue operation, which was done amid a total deployment ban ordered by Manila after a series of OFW deaths and reports of abuses in the Gulf state.   

Bello said that he is going to recommend to President Rodrigo Duterte the partial lifting of the deployment ban.

Likewise, Bello said that the proposed partial lifting of the ban would only cover skilled and professional workers, and the ban on household service workers still needs further study.

Records of the the Department of Labor and Employment show that only 1.7 percent of Filipino domestics in Kuwait experience abuses by their employers.

DOLE records also show that 60 percent of the of the 260,000 documented OFWs in Kuwait are household service workers. 

Moreover, Bello said the remaining 644 distressed OFWs in Kuwait are already set for repatriation. —LBG, GMA News