Lifting of OFW deployment ban to Kuwait up to PRRD: DOLE

FILE: The Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) said the decision on whether to lift or not the ban on the deployment of overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) to Kuwait is up to President Rodrigo Duterte.(Alfred Frias/Presidential Photo)

MANILA — The Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) said the decision on whether to lift or not the ban on the deployment of overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) to Kuwait is up to President Rodrigo Duterte.

Labor Secretary Silvestre Bello III made the statement in connection with the arrest of the suspects in the death of Joanna Demafelis, whose dead body was found in a freezer inside an abandoned apartment in the Gulf state earlier this month.

“It will be the President who will decide on that,” said Bello, when asked if they would issue a recommendation on the deployment ban.

The DOLE chief said that they would wait on the action of the Kuwaiti government regarding the matter.

“We will see on what the Kuwaiti government will do…

but what is important is when they (Kuwait) sign the Memorandum of Understanding for the protection of our OFWs. If they do that, there is a possibility that the President might lift the ban,” Bello said.

On Thursday, Duterte said that the deployment ban would stay unless the arrest of the suspects on the death of Demafelis has been made.

It was reported that the employers of Demafelis, Nader Essam Assaf, a Lebanese national, and his Syrian wife Mona Hassoun, were arrested in separate occasions in Lebanon and Syria, this week.

They are the principal suspects in the death of the 29-year-old household service worker (HSW) from Sara, Iloilo.