The Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) said it had brought home on Wednesday 65 more distressed Filipinos from the United Arab Emirates as it vows to pursue President Rodrigo Duterte’s commitment to assist migrant workers.
With this latest batch, a total of 969 Filipinos have so far been repatriated from the Gulf state since January this year.
“Like what President Duterte said during his Sona, I condemn strongly the abuses being experienced by our OFWs in the hands of their recruiters or employers,” Foreign Secretary Alan Peter Cayetano said in a statement late Wednesday .
“When these abuses happen, the DFA can be expected to act decisively to protect our kababayan and bring them home,” Cayetano said.
In his third State of the Nation Address (Sona), Duterte vowed to protect the welfare of overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) by working with their host states.
“I have said this before and I say it again: I am a worker of government, and it is my vow to make sure that your well-being remains our foremost foreign policy concern,” Duterte said.
“It is for this reason that we are continuing to work with the host nations to ensure the welfare of our countrymen. I appeal to all host governments to help us, as true and dependable partners, in this endeavor,” he added.
DFA said it has shouldered the cost of exit passes processing, airfare to Manila and to the provinces.
“Rest assured the DFA, through our Embassy in Abu Dhabi and Consulate General in Dubai, will assist our kababayan in need in resolving their immigration cases and repatriating them,” Cayetano said.
The Philippine Embassy in Abu Dhabi said 643,000 Filipinos live or work in the UAE with most of them in Abu Dhabi and Dubai.
Charge d’Affaires Rowena Pangilinan-Daquipil said that of the 969 repatriated OFWs, 777 have stayed at the Embassy shelter, while 212 were walk-in clients.
“With the signing of the UAE Law for Domestic Workers and the Philippines-UAE Memorandum of Understanding on Labor Cooperation in 2017, the Embassy hopes that incidents of abuse, maltreatment, detention, and other complaints by our domestic workers will decline,” she said. /muf