51 distressed OFWs from Kuwait arrive in PHL

A total of 51 distressed overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) who were sheltered at the Filipino Workers Resource Center in Kuwait have been repatriated to the Philippines, Labor Secretary Rosalinda Baldoz announced Tuesday. Citing a report of Philippine Labor Attaché to Kuwait David Des Dicang, Baldoz said the OFWs were victims of nonpayment of salaries, and physical, verbal, and sexual abuses. The plane tickets of the distressed OFWs were shouldered by their respective manpower recruitment agencies, Baldoz said. Dicang, in a report on Arab Times, said at least 296 distressed Filipinos are still taking temporary refuge at the center in Jabriya. The Philippine and Kuwaiti governments are still in the process of repatriating them. The newly-installed labor attaché said that for those who are going home with pending cases before the Kuwaiti court, the Philippine government will continue following their cases till their resolution. “We will try our best to get what is due them and will send whatever claims they have to their respective provinces in the Philippines," Dicang said. The report said Dicang is bent on expediting the repatriation of the distressed workers and decongesting the resource center by implementing new guidelines and policies at the Philippine Overseas Labor Office in Kuwait. “Among the guidelines he has implemented recently is the non-processing of job orders or documents of manpower recruitment agencies that has a ward who is housed at the center," Arab Times reported. “The job orders or documents of those concerned manpower recruitment agencies will only be processed if efforts have been maximized to repatriate their respective wards," it added. — JE, GMA News