MANILA, 11 June 2004 — A team from the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) will soon be on their way to help search and bring home runaway Overseas Filipino Workers (OFWs) in the Middle East.
Acting Labor Secretary Manuel Imson said 500 OFWs have been reported to his office to have run away from their employers over the past weeks in various countries in the Middle East, including Saudi Arabia.
Most of these runaways are domestic helpers, he said.
The runaways are seeking refuge with the respective Philippine missions, but some are said to be staying with friends.
Imson said the team will work with Philippine labor personnel in the host countries to locate those who are staying with friends so that they can be repatriated.
“Any OFW, male or female, who has signified their intention to come home will be assisted,” Imson said, adding “whatever their reasons, they will be assisted.”
Imson said the DOLE is asking the Overseas Workers Welfare Administration (OWWA) to fund the “emergency repatriation” estimated at 12 million pesos ($214,000).
The team, coming from OWWA and the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA), is authorized to seek representations with the host governments in cases where the runaway has a pending case, criminal or otherwise.
It’s primary target will be the 327 runaway OFWs in Kuwait, 83 in Saudi Arabia, 22 in Lebanon, 48 in the United Arab Emirates or UAE and 12 in Bahrain, Imso said.
He said his specific instructions to the team was to assist the Philippine embassies and the Philippine Overseas Labor Offices (POLO) in these countries in “fast-tracking the repatriation documentation of the stranded OFWs.”
As the team is leaving the Philippines on June 14, the runaways can be expected home within the next three weeks. “We are dependent on the host governments as they will give out the exit visas,” Imson said.
The employment agencies of the workers in question have also been requested to help secure exit visas for their runaway OFWs with a threat to have their licenses revoked, Imson said.
He said he made the decision following the report of labor attachés Leopoldo de Jesus and Angelo Jimenez that stranded workers now being sheltered by the POLO in Kuwait have increased and are now close to 400.
“We have already brought down the number of stranded workers in Kuwait to less than a hundred by repatriating many of them immediately after the US-led war on Iraq, but there has been again a noticeable increase so we need to bring them home,” Imson said.
Negotiations with host governments and with employers have been done successfully in the past, particularly last year before the US-led war on Iraq.
