Duterte renews vow to visit Kuwait

President Rodrigo Duterte on Monday renewed his pledge to visit Kuwait where cases of abuse against overseas Filipino workers previously triggered a diplomatic row between the two countries.

Duterte said he would visit the oil-rich nation after the Kuwaiti employers of murdered Filipina domestic worker Jeanalyn Villavende were arrested and detained.

“To me, that is good justice. And if they can follow through in accordance with their laws, I will ask for the maximum,” Duterte, who first expressed his willingness to go to Kuwait in 2018, told reporters in Malacañang.

“I want their executioner to cut off the heads of those who are responsible for the death of the Filipina.”

The Philippines imposed a total deployment ban to Kuwait because of the incident.

Manila only lifted the ban last month following the approval by the Kuwait and Philippine governments of a harmonized employment contract for Filipino domestic workers in the Gulf state.

More than half of close to 250,000 documented workers in Kuwait are household workers, according to the Department of Labor and Employment. —LDF, GMA News