PHL execs working for repatriation of Gaddafi helper

Philippine labor officials are working for the swift repatriation from Libya of a Filipina working in the household of a relative of the late Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi.   Labor Secretary Rosalinda Baldoz said Philippine officials there are processing the travel papers of Baylin Pasandalan so she can return to the Philippines.   A news release on the Labor Department website said Pasandalan “worked for a relative” of the late Libyan leader and is the only distressed overseas Filipino worker there at this time.   She said labor attaché Nasser Mustafa is now processing Pasandalan’s travel papers.   While claiming that the general situation in Libya continues to improve, Baldoz asked OFWs there to be careful because of “intermittent skirmishes and armed robbers who steal cars and valuables.”   More than 300 Filipino workers have arrived in Libya, she added, following the partial lifting of the deployment ban there near the end of 2011, bringing the OFW population there to nearly 3, 000.   The Labor secretary cited a report from Mustafa, who said the number of Filipinos who have been recalled to Libya—both for the medical and old field sectors—had been more than 300 already. They added to the 2, 256 OFWs and dependents who remained in the country during its crisis.   “The oil workers, upon their arrival, had been dispatched directly to their workplaces in the Western Sahara Desert to do maintenance work in the oilfields,” Baldoz said.   She said the oil workers are now working safely in the Waha, Zuetina, Repsol, Eni, Vaos, Agip, AGOCO, Taknia, Sirte, and Jabel oil fields. - RJMD, GMA News