(Eagle News) – The Philippine and Kuwaiti governments will be signing a memorandum of understanding (MOU) for the protection of overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) this month.
“In two weeks, the panels agreed to have the signing most likely in Kuwait,” Labor Secretary Silvestre Bello III said in an interview on Friday, March 16.
Bello said that labor officials from both countries approved the final MOU draft on that same day after a two-day negotiation in Manila, and after resolving issues on OFWs’ passports and employment contracts.
The MOU to be signed, Bello said, now stipulates that the OFWs’ passports will be kept by the Philippine Embassy, not by employers, and that the employment contract will be in accordance with Philippine laws.
According to Bello, both parties also agreed on other items such as on the amount to be paid to OFWs monthly– US$400 net—and on where the money will be deposited to ensure that the worker is being paid.
Bello said it was decided the employer would open a bank account for this.
To address complaints of OFWs being “sold” by their employers to others, Bello said both parties agreed the OFW must give a written consent approved by the labor attaché before he or she is transferred.
As for the the Philippines’ demand that OFWs be allowed to have a cellphone, Bello said this was a “non-issue” to the Kuwaiti government.
Deployment ban
Bello, however, said that there was no guarantee that the Philippine government would lift the ban on the deployment of OFWs to Kuwait once the MOU was signed.
“If you recalll when President.. Duterte ordered the total deployment ban, he said, he will only consider lifting the ban if there will be the MOU and Johanna Demafelis is given justice,” he said.
Demafelis was found inside a freezer in Kuwait last month.
