THOUSANDS of Filipino workers stranded in Saudi Arabia can now return to the country after Saudi King Salman bin Abdulaziz al-Saud issued a royal decree waiving the penalties for foreign workers affected by a massive layoff and retrenchment.
The Philippine Embassy charge d’affaires and consul general Eric Arribas made the announcement after Philippine officials met with the Saudi Ministry of Labor and Social Development over the plight of the workers.
The workers could not leave the kingdom because of the penalties they had to pay after their work permits expired when they were retrenched by companies that went bankrupt because of the low oil prices.
The Philippine officials, led by Labor Undersecretary Ciriaco Lagunzad, Philippine Overseas Employment Administrator Leo Hans Cacdac and Labatt Rustico De la Fuente, made representations with Saudi officials for the royal waiver.
The Saudi king has also ordered his government to assist Filipinos in administering the transfer of employment to other Saudi companies who have vacancies for skilled Filipino workers.
“The lifting of penalties for the expired work permits of stranded Filipinos who are willing to work can still apply for work in other companies in Saudi,” said employment recruiter Emmanuel Geslani.
Labor Secretary Silvestre Bello III said that affected OFW families will receive financial assistance from the Overseas Workers Welfare Administration amounting to P6,000 while those who will be repatriated will be given P20,000 each upon their arrival in the country.
“The first batch of officials would fly to Saudi Arabia on Wednesday “to provide immediate humanitarian, legal, and other consular assistance to the overseas Filipino workers [OFWs] stranded in work camps across Saudi Arabia,” the Department of Foreign Affairs said.
The immediate target is to bring aid to “those without food and in dire need of medical care and other support services,” the DFA added.
The Philippines said it would within days send government missions to Saudi Arabia to help thousands of jobless Filipinos left stranded across the kingdom after the plunge in oil prices.
“A high-level delegation of senior Philippine government officials will also be sent soonest to negotiate immediate and long-term solutions with counterparts in the Saudi government,” the DFA said.
“The directive of [President Rodrigo Duterte] is to bring all of them home as soon as possible,” Bello told ABS-CBN television in an interview aired Saturday.
Labor rights monitors in the Philippines said last week some Filipinos have been forced to beg or sift through garbage to survive after going unpaid for months or after having been laid off from construction jobs.
The Philippine government estimates about 9,000 Filipino workers were affected, though the Manila-based labor rights group Migrante said as many as 20,000 could be in distress.
Asian activists and officials have said thousands of Indians and Pakistanis are also stranded in Saudi Arabia following the layoffs.
About 10 million Filipinos work abroad due to low wages or lack of jobs in their own country of about 100 million people. Oil-rich Middle Eastern countries have been a key destination since the 1970s. With AFP