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Solons call for full protection of OFWs in Kuwait, Singapore

By Jigger Jerusalem

January 3, 2020, 8:43 pm

<p>Cagayan de Oro City's Second District Rep. Rufus Rodriguez (left) and Agusan del Norte First District Rep. Lawrence Fortun. <em>(PNA file photo)</em></p>

Cagayan de Oro City's Second District Rep. Rufus Rodriguez (left) and Agusan del Norte First District Rep. Lawrence Fortun. (PNA file photo)

CAGAYAN DE ORO CITY – Two lawmakers from Mindanao are batting for the full protection of overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) in Kuwait and Singapore, where three OFWs were reported to have died recently.

Rep. Rufus Rodriguez of this city’s Second District said his proposed legislation on the creation of a new department that will handle migrant employees' concerns, is now being taken up at the Lower House.

In a statement Friday, he urged the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) to secure the best lawyers in Kuwait to prosecute the wife of Jeanelyn Villavende’s employer.

Reports said Villavende, a Filipino domestic helper who was killed last month, had informed her recruitment agency that she was being maltreated and was not given her full salary by her Kuwaiti employer as early as September last year.

Rodriguez said he filed House Bill 5832 or "An Act creating the Department of Filipinos Overseas and Foreign Employment", defining its mandate, powers and function, in order to immediately and fully protect and assist Filipino workers abroad.

He said the HB 5832 has been consolidated with other bills in Congress and “the consolidated bill under a Committee Report has already been debated in the plenary in the House.”

In a separate statement, Agusan del Norte First District Rep. Lawrence Fortun urged negotiators from the DFA and Department of Labor and Employment to demand blood money from Villavende’s suspected killer, aside from the arrest and prosecution of the perpetrator.

“For the sensitive situation in Kuwait, applying the principle of reciprocity, our country should demand blood money from the Kuwaiti employer’s family aside from the expeditious prosecution and conviction of the killer,” Fortun said.

He said the Kuwaitis are familiar with the concept of paying the corresponding amount to the aggrieved family but they must also be made aware of the government-to-government agreements that made the deployment of domestic workers to Kuwait possible.

“Blood money they understand. The bilateral agreement, that they do not understand. We should communicate with them in ways they can understand,” Fortun said.

He added: “We should put an end to this continued disrespect of our so-called bilateral agreement which only our side has been religiously observing. This agreement has failed, time and again, to protect Filipino household service workers [HSWs] from being subjected to slave treatment by cruel employers.”

Fortun said the country “should already depart from the HSW market. This practice and policy have created a very wrong impression for our OFWs. Household services overseas have been regarded as jobs for the unskilled and most of those employed in this sector are Filipinos. This we cannot allow to continue.”

On the recent deaths of two OFWs in Singapore, Fortun said the Philippine embassy must work with other institutions there to find “suitable safe spaces where thousands of Pinoys can spend their days off at no cost to the OFWs”. (PNA)

 

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