Withdrawal of deployment ban on 41 states temporary, says DFA

The Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) yesterday clarified that the withdrawal of Philippine deployment ban on 41 states that lack adequate protection for foreign workers is only temporary pending the outcome of dialogs with the concerned nations.

DFA spokesman Raul Hernandez said the ban will be deferred as part of the department’s review procedure, which is still subject to the approval of the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA), the policy’s implementing agency.

“We will use the deferment period to revisit the 41 countries with the view of moving forward toward compliance with Republic Act 10092 to ensure the promotion and the protection of the rights and welfare of our workers overseas,” Hernandez said.

The DFA, he said, will submit new certifications after 90 days “taking into account results of DFA’s dialog with the countries concerned and new development in those countries with respect to protection of migrant workers.”

If the POEA grants the DFA’s request to defer the implementation of the ban this month, Hernandez said the DFA review is expected to be completed by Feb. 2012.

“By that time, there is a possibility that some countries will be taken off the list,” he said, adding that the DFA received assurances from the POEA that it will act on its request.

Labor officials said the unprecedented blacklist, which include Afghanistan, Iraq, Lebanon, Pakistan, North Korea, Cambodia and India, after Philippine embassies and diplomatic missions certified that those countries lacked the required labor protection of a Philippine law — the recently amended the Migrant Workers and Overseas Filipinos Act of 1995 — wanted a country to have before Filipino workers could be sent there.

It was not clear why the DFA appeared to be in the dark about the decision to impose the labor ban on 41 countries when its officials and diplomats played a key part in selecting compliant and non-compliant countries.

The Philippines is one of the top labor-sending states in the world with at least eight million working in the skilled and unskilled sectors across the globe, earning more than they could in the country gripped by widespread poverty and a stagnant job market.

Meanwhile, an administration lawmaker yesterday lauded the decision of the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) to withdraw the list that served as the basis of the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA) to ban the deployment of overseas Filipino workers to at least 41 “non-compliant” countries.

Valenzuela Rep. Rex Gatchalian, whose advocacies include the protection of the rights of OFWs, is however taking the DFA to task for the confusion that followed after it submitted the list to the POEA.

“I welcome the decision of the DFA to withdraw the list. The move showed that the agency was willing to rectify an obviously flawed recommendation judging from the negative reactions it received not only from the affected OFWs but also from the stakeholders and industry players,” Gatchalian said.

The second thing solon likewise urged the DFA to carefully study the certification process before submitting a new list “which should be in accordance with what was stipulated in Section 3 of the RA 10022 that amended the RA 8042 or the Migrant Workers and Overseas Filipinos Act of 1995.”

“Certainly, there is no problem with the law. The problem merely cropped up due to the obvious haphazard way that it was interpreted and implemented by the people from the DFA,” said Gatchalian, one of the principal authors of the law.

He cited as an example the case of a number of countries such as Kyrgyzstan , Tajikistan , Lesotho , Libya, Mali , Cambodia and Mauritania among other states which were all signatories to the United Nations Convention for the Protection of Migrant Workers.

The lawmaker, however, was surprised that despite being signatories to the convention, the countries were still included in the list of non-compliant nations.

He explained that under the law, the DFA is required to certify host countries if they have labor laws, or are signatories to multilateral conventions, have bilateral agreements with the Philippines, and other concrete measures that would protect the rights of OFWs.

“Likewise, there are certain Asean country members that are not part of the DFA compliant list like Singapore or are in the non-compliant list such as Cambodia , yet it signed the Asean Declaration on the Protection and Promotion of the Rights of Migrant Workers. Therefore that would serve as compliance to RA 10022” he stressed.

“In as much as these countries were signatories to the said convention, then by application of the law they should not have been included in the non-compliant list,” Gatchalian said.

He also cited as an example the International Labor Organization convention during which all Gulf States voted to support to the covenant that would provide adequate protection to all domestic helpers.

Despite the expression of support, many Gulf States were still included in the non-compliant list.

“If there will be diplomatic or economic repercussions because of this deployment ban then the DFA has nothing to blame but its certification process,” Gatchalian said. –Michaela P. del Callar and Charlie V. Manalo, Daily Tribune