The Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) confirmed on Saturday
that 800 Overseas Filipino Workers (OFWs) were about to go home from Kuwait.
There will be more Filipino workers from the Gulf state to be
repatriated in the next more days to come.
This action came after President Rodrigo Duterte announced
that OFWs in Kuwait who want to go home maybe deported back to the Philippines
within the next 72 hours.
DFA Usec Sarah Lou Ariola said that 800 is just an initial number
of Filipino workers expected to in the coming days.
President Rodrigo Duterte had earlier directed the DFA to find
ways and bring home the OFWs from Kuwait, and that he will ask the Philippine
Airlines and Cebu Pacific to transport them back.
“So everyone who wants to come home, I said to Secretary
Bello, those who want to be repatriated, with or without money, I will ask PAL
and Cebu Pacific to provide the transportation. I want them out of the country
those who want to go out in 72 hours,” the president said.
“We will count our lives by the hours because apparently,
every hour, there is a suffering and agony, brutality committed by Filipinos,” he
added.
The travel expenses will be deducted to the DFA’s assistance-to-nationals
(ATN) fund, says Raul Dado, the executive director of the DFA Office of
Migrants Workers Affairs.
Based on the records, there are around 250, 000 Filipino
workers in Kuwait.
The president earlier threatened to impose a total ban of
employment to the country of Kuwait due to reports of maltreatment and abuse of
some employers to its Filipino workers.
In 2016, there were 82 recorded deaths of OFWs in Kuwait, which
increased by 20 percent in 2017.
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