Duterte approves total deployment ban to Kuwait

By Catherine S. Valente, TMT, with BERNADETTE E. TAMAYO, 18 Jan 2020

President Rodrigo Duterte has approved the Department of Labor and Employment’s recommendation for a total deployment ban to Kuwait, Malacañang announced on Friday.

In a statement, Palace spokesman Salvador Panelo bared that the Kuwaiti government tried to hide the cause of death of Filipino worker Jeanelyn Villavende, who was killed last month by her employers.

He said the President had approved the recommendation of Labor Secretary Silvestre Bello 3rd on the total deployment ban.

A reautopsy conducted by the National Bureau of Investigation on Villavende found that she was sexually abused, “which means that the Kuwaiti government was attempting to hide the said circumstance when it gave us a general autopsy report that the cause of death was trauma and bruises all over her body,” Panelo added.

The ban stays unless the agreement to improve protection for overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) in Kuwait is fully implemented, he said.

The Philippines entered into an agreement with the Kuwaiti government after the deaths of several Filipinos in the Gulf state, including Joanna Demafelis, who was found dead in a freezer in 2018.

Kuwait hosts some 262,000 Filipinos, nearly 60 percent of whom are domestic workers.

The Philippine Embassy in Kuwait on Friday said it provided medical assistance in 2019 to 108 OFWs with various illnesses, 27 of whom were repatriated for being terminally ill.

The embassy’s Medical Response Team (MRT) has assisted OFWs with various medical conditions such as stroke, cancer, high blood pressure, diabetes and fractured body parts, among others.

In 2019, the MRT also referred about 100 Filipinos to primary, secondary and tertiary hospitals and clinics in Kuwait for medical check-up and corresponding treatment.

Chargé d’Affaires to Kuwait Mohd. Noordin Pendosina Lomondot formed the MRT team in 2018 to address the various medical concerns of Filipinos in Kuwait.