Duterte says ban on deploying workers to Kuwait “stays permanently”

April 29, 2018

DAVAO CITY – President Rodrigo Duterte scrapped pursuing a memorandum of understanding with Kuwait and announced on Sunday a permanent ban on deploying Filipino workers to the oil-rich state.

“The ban stays permanently. There will be no more recruitment, especially domestic helpers,” Duterte told a news briefing Sunday morning after issuing his arrival statement from a working visit to Singapore and his attendance at the 32ndSoutheast Asian Summit.

He said Filipino professionals may opt to stay in Kuwait,  but he particularly appealed to “Filipino household service workers whose employers do not want them anymore to please come home out of your sense of patriotism and honor”.

Duterte said other household service workers, “whose employers want you to stay that is their choice”.

“But chose the better option,” he said. “Your government would do its best to have you return and resettle.”

While he did not make any direct reference to the Kuwait expulsion of the Filipino ambassador and the arrest of embassy drivers, Duterte’s decision appeared to have been formed after.

Last Sunday, Kuwait expressed its displeasure over a video of a rescue mission of Filipino workers by Philippine officials which became viral online. On Thursday, two days after Duterte met the Kuwaiti ambassador in Davao, Kuwait announced that it was expelling Philippine Ambassdor Renato Pedro Villa and recalled its envoy.

The DFA said Kuwait has detained four Filipinos hired by the Philippine Embassy and issued arrest warrants against diplomatic personnel after the video came out.

He said: “All I have (to say) is that the employers treat the Filipinos the humanity they deserve. Please do not abuse Filipinos.”

Yet, he added, “I do not nurture hate against the Kuwaiti people and government. After all these years of our best relations, Filipinos have benefited, a lot of them worked there”.

“Nothing of a sort of vengeance. My only concern now is to get back Filipinos. And I would spend the entire P4.4 billion to get them out,” he said, and disclosed that some 700 Filipinos were currently in the temporary shelters “seeking sanctuary”.

“We will spend the money, all of it, to the last peso to get them back,” he added, and said the money maybe used to pay off the debts of the stranded Filipinos.

“I do not begrudge the Kuwaitis. Maybe it’s also the fault of (Filipinos),” he said. He said though, that “simply, I could not accept it. Like what Sen. JV Ejercito was saying that he would rather see Filipinos coming, going out, being taken out, forced out than have them back in a casket”.

He said his priority was to bring home all the 700 stranded Filipino workers in Kuwait and said he hoped Kuwait would allow them to go home. Duterte said the Kuwaiti employers may still opt to press charges in their courts. “My hope is for Kuwait to do away with the charges,” he said.

He said China has informed him it was needing foreign workers, including English-language teachers and initial estimates indicated that China may need as many as 100,000 workers, mostly teachers.

The rest would be taken cared of by the Technical Education Skills Development Administration (TESDA). “I would also try to look at other jobs available to them”.  TESDA may train returning workers from Kuwait on caregiving, saying several countries were now demanding for caregivers.

“Even if it would be hard, but we can survive,” he said.

He said the economy though, “is doing good” and the country may need soon the expertise of the migrant workers. DMS