President makes announcement following discovery of a Filipina in an apartment freezer in oil-rich country
(Eagle News) — President Rodrigo Duterte on Friday said that the ban on the deployment of Overseas Filipino Workers to Kuwait would continue, noting that he was “ready to take drastic steps” to preserve OFW lives.
“If a ban is what is needed then let it be so,” a visibly angry Duterte said in a speech following news about the discovery of a Filipina in a freezer in an apartment in the Middle Eastern country.
According to Duterte, he did not know when the ban, which he again declared this morning, would be lifted.
“Pu**** i**, di ko masikmura ito. This is totally, totally unacceptable to me,” Duterte said, even as he recognized that the Philippines “needed” Kuwait.
“Do not give us back a battered worker or a mutilated corpse,” he said.
Labor Secretary Silvestre Bello said the agency would “continue with the suspension of processing of new (permits) until we have determined the true causes of deaths of 7 OFWs in December last year and January of this year.”
He said this included the death of the OFW from Iloilo who was found in the freezer, Joanna Danielle Dimapilis.
According to Duterte, he also wanted charges filed against illegal recruiters who had something to do with the deployment of affected OFWs there.
“I will order (Justice Secretary Vitaliano) Aguirre to issue the order. (Illegal recruitment) is a continuing crime..if they are into it, I will have them arrested without bail,” he said.
He also reminded airport personnel that the bags of OFWs should not be opened.
He said if something happened to their bags, all those assigned there would be relieved and assigned to Mindanao, which he said was a backdoor for terrorists.
Earlier, the Department of Labor and Employment declared a suspension on the deployment of OFWs to Kuwait, but this was only temporary.
DOLE declared the temporary suspension following Duterte’s concerns about reports of abuses of OFWs there.