136 Filipino househelps in Kuwait need rescue

MANILA, Philippines — At least 136 distraught Filipino household service workers in Kuwait need to be rescued by the augmentation team of the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) and the Philippine embassy.

DFA Assistant Secretary Elmer Cato revealed yesterday that the department is stepping up efforts to rescue the workers, with the Office of the Undersecretary for Migrant Workers Affairs (OUMWA) working over the past two weeks to take into custody distressed Filipinos who had been awaiting rescue. 

Seven teams under the supervision of OUMWA executive director Raul Dado have been carrying out the rescue, with the assistance of Kuwaiti authorities.

The augmentation teams were deployed on orders of Foreign Secretary Alan Peter  Cayetano to assist the embassy in the ongoing repatriation of undocumented Filipino workers and in responding to requests for rescue from Filipinos in Kuwait and their families in the Philippines. 

“Our teams have been rescuing from six to seven distressed Filipino household service workers everyday,” Cato said. “We have reduced the number of Filipinos who needed to be rescued from 200 a few weeks ago to 136 as of last night.”

“We are hoping that before the end of next month, we would have addressed the backlog and we could respond immediately to requests for rescue from our kababayan there. They will no longer have to wait weeks or months before we could get to them,” he added.

Cayetano said more than 4,000 undocumented workers have been repatriated from Kuwait.

“To further bridge goodwill, President Duterte expressed his intention to visit Kuwait to witness the signing of a bilateral agreement that would provide better protection for household service workers,” Cayetano said at a forum of the Foreign Correspondents Association of the Philippines.

Cayetano said “between today and the day (Duterte) visits Kuwait, we’re still working on a couple more issues on the implementation side before the final signing.”

The Philippines, according to Cayetano, was able to secure the commitment of Kuwait on several matters, including the minimum monthly salary of KD120 or around P20,000; rest hours of at least eight hours a day; possession of their passports and mobile phones; and limiting their work to only one household.

He underscored the need to include more practical measures to make the proposed agreement implementable.

Among the measures Cayetano earlier said he would want to see in the agreement would be payment of salaries direct to the bank account of Filipino domestic workers whenever feasible and a mechanism that would allow them to file their complaints directly with Kuwaiti authorities.

Duterte is expected to visit Kuwait before the celebration of Ramadan, according to Kuwait Times last Tuesday.

Philippine Ambassador to Kuwait Renato Villa met foreign ministry officials last Monday, informing them of the visit. However, the date is yet to be finalized, the Kuwait Times added, pending confirmation from the Amiri Diwan, the royal palace of the Emir of Kuwait.

The Kuwait Times also reported that the recent Kuwait-Philippines labor crisis has led to a 13.3 percent drop in remittances by OFWs over the past two months, or $105.9 million.

For his part, Labor Secretary Silvestre Bello III said a memorandum of understanding will be signed before the beginning of Ramadan on May 15.

An estimated 10 million Filipinos live and work abroad, including 250,000 in Kuwait.

Meanwhile, the condition of Agnes Mancilla, who was forced to drink household bleach by her employer in Saudi Arabia, continues to improve as preparations are made to transfer her to a  hospital in Jeddah, the DFA said yesterday.

“Agnes’s condition continues to improve and as of last night she was scheduled to be transferred from the intensive care unit to a regular ward,” said Cato.

Consul General Edgar Badajos of the Philippine consulate general in Jeddah said Mancilla’s hands were full of abrasions resulting from her handling of chemical agents without using gloves.  – With Rudy Santos