THE Labor department lifted the ban on the deployment of Filipino workers to Qatar after Foreign Affairs found there was no war, conflict or political strife in that country that would endanger the lives of the workers, an official said Thursday.
“This decision was arrived at on the advice of Foreign Affairs Secretary Allan Peter Cayetano and upon the recommendation of Qatar POLO following their assessment of the situation in the Gulf state,” Labor Secretary Silvestre Bello III said.
Labor Attaché David Des Dicang and the Philippine Embassy said the deployment of newly hired workers to Qatar was now also open, particularly to the Philippine School Doha and Philippine International School-Qatar.
“We respectfully requested to allow the deployment so as not to hamper the operations of our Philippine schools and to allay fears of the revocation of their school permits issued by the Qatar government,” Dicang said.
A total of 28 new teachers and 20 bus drivers of PSD and 51 new teachers of PISQ have pending applications with the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration.
The Philippine Embassy and POLO also recommended the deployment of an Assessment Team composed of the Labor department, POEA, the Overseas Workers Welfare Administration and the Undersecretary for Migrant Workers Affairs of Foreign Affairs to Qatar to meet with the government authorities and companies providing employment to Filipino workers.
POLO is also continuously coordinating with the Qatari authorities to discuss possible difficulties regarding the repatriation of distressed Filipino workers temporarily accommodated at the Migrant Workers and other Overseas Filipinos Resource Center and are looking into the possible situation of Household Service Worker of non-Qatari employers who will be left in the country or will be forced to travel with their employers.
Bello said the Qatari government had guaranteed the safety of around 240,000 Filipinos in Qatar and affirmed that they had the ability to withstand any possible economic shocks out of the diplomatic impasse with its neighboring Arab countries.
Meanwhile, the Filipinos in Qatar have expressed confidence in their safety with the strengthened efforts of the Labor department and other concerned government agencies in ensuring their basic welfare and security amid the diplomatic crisis.
Bello ordered the temporary suspension in the deployment of Filipinos to Qatar last week to secure their welfare and security in case of any eventuality after some neighboring Arab states cut diplomatic ties with the Gulf state.
