DFA wants lifting of deployment ban to Nigeria deferred for 90 days

Published December 29, 2011 3:00pm

Citing the Al-Qaeda-linked church bombings in Nigeria that killed 40 people on Christmas Day, the Philippine Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) said on Thursday it wants the lifting of labor ban for Filipino workers to the African state deferred for 90 days.

DFA Secretary Albert Del Rosario asked Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) Secretary Rosalinda Baldoz to put the DFA's recommendation for the lifting of the deployment ban to Nigeria on hold for three months. The DFA's request for deferment came a week after it proposed the cancellation of the ban effective January 1, 2012 because of the improved security situation in the Niger Delta. However, the DFA said its recommendation did not yet take into account the Christmas Day bombings.

Del Rosario said the Philippines is "convinced that the security situation in Nigeria will soon improve to allow us to again send Filipino workers there." The Philippine government imposed a ban on the deployment of Filipino workers to Nigeria because of the series of kidnapping of Filipino seafarers in the Niger Delta from 2006 to 2009.

In its earlier recommendation, the DFA said the insurgency and kidnappings in the Niger Delta have been properly addressed and that the country was already “a vibrant democracy with a thriving economy.”

Demand for foreign workers The Philippines is a major labor-exporting nation with about 8.6 million skilled and unskilled workers abroad. The Philippine government had sought to remove the ban so that Filipinos seeking employment overseas can take advantage of the rising demand for foreign workers in Nigeria’s energy sector. Some 5,000 jobs in the oil, gas and construction industries are available in Nigeria.

Currently, there are some 7,240 Filipinos in Nigeria, mostly working as professionals or married to Nigerians. - VVP, GMA News

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