The Philippines has signed a standard contract of employment with Kuwait to improve the working conditions of overseas Filipino workers, but the Duterte administration will not lift just yet its deployment ban on the Middle Eastern country.
“We have signed this agreement and there will be full implementation immediately,” Labor Secretary Silvestre Bello III said.
The agreement will ensure that Filipino household service workers are able to keep their passport and mobile phones during their stay in Kuwait. It also provides for fixed working and sleeping hours as well as a day off every week.
The lifting of the deployment ban, which was reimposed with the murder of Filipina worker Jeanalyn Villavende in December, will depend on the result of cooperation efforts between the two countries on several cases involving OFWs.
“I am still validating their claim that the people who committed crimes against our OFWs have already been charged in court and are behind bars,” Bello said.
Foreign Affairs Secretary Teodoro Locsin Jr. said the suspects had initially offered P59 million in “blood money,” but this was rejected by the victim’s family who insisted on justice for Villavende.
The labor chief said aside from Villavende, he also inquired on the cases of Joanna Demafelis and Constancia Dayag, among others.
Demafelis was found dead in a freezer in February 2018. Her murder prompted Manila and Kuwait to sign a memorandum of understanding to provide additional protection to OFWs in the Gulf state.
Dayag was beaten to death in Kuwait in May last year.
