(Eagle News) — The government is about to ink an agreement with China to allow for the deployment of Overseas Filipino Workers there.
Labor Secretary Silvestre Bello III made the revelation in an interview over dzbb on Saturday, a day after a visibly angry President Rodrigo Duterte said the ban on the deployment of Filipino workers to Kuwait would stay.
This was after the body of a Filipina was discovered in an apartment freezer in the oil-rich country.
Earlier, Duterte already railed against Kuwait for the reported abuses of other OFWs there.
According to Bello, the “bilateral agreement” between the Philippines and China was supposed to be signed on the sidelines of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations Summit in November last year.
But China, he said, asked for time to study it first.
“..Pero ngayon ipagpapatuloy na namin ang pag-pirma,” he said.
So far, Bello said the Department of Labor and Employment has been given 72 hours to bring the over 2000 OFWs in Kuwait who have expressed their desire to return home.
“Tinawagan ko ang labor attaché ng Kuwait at sinabi kong ihanda na niya yung repatriation ng ating mga kababayan na gustong umuwi. At tutulungan natin silang makauwi,” Bello said.
The body of Joanna Daniela Dimapilis was discovered in a unit left abandoned since 2016.
The unit was rented by a Syrian woman and a Lebanese national, who was facing several charges including charges for bouncing checks at that time.