Talks over settling unpaid OFW salaries failed, deployment to Saudi still suspended — Bello

Labor Secretary Silvestre Bello III on Wednesday said the suspension of deployment of overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) in Saudi Arabia is still in force as the P4.6 billion in unpaid salaries of some 9,000 OFWs who were forced to return home remain unsettled.

At the Labor Department’s virtual press chat, Bello said the promise of the Saudi government to pay the claims of OFWs on the sidelines of the  Abu Dhabi Dialogue in October last year did not materialize. 

He said Saudi Arabian Labor Minister Ahmed al-Rajhi, who committed to visit the Philippines in December 2021 to settle the claims, did not arrive in the country.

Instead, the Saudi Labor minister’s technical working group came to the Philippines only to discuss “mega recruitment agencies.”

“Hindi naman siya (al-Rhaji) dumating. Ang dumating technical working group niya. Wala naman, gusto nila pag-usapan mega recruitment agencies nila. Walang nangyari,” Bello said.

(He did not come. Who arrived were his technical working group. What they wanted to discuss was their mega recruitment agencies. Nothing materialized.)

“Right now, we just stick to suspension para mabigyan sila ng all the reasons and motivation to settle the claims of our OFWs,” the Labor chief said.

(Right now, we just stick to suspension to give them all the reasons and motivation to settle the claims of our OFWs.)

Bello said the Saudi Labor minister’s technical working group suggested that he instead talk to their Justice minister for the settlement of unpaid claims of OFWs.

“I will wait for the invitation,” he said, noting that he will immediately fly to Saudi Arabia once the invitation for a dialogue with the Justice minister of the Middle Eastern country is handed over.

In 2016, the Philippine government repatriated the OFWs after they stopped receiving their salaries following the economic crisis in the Middle Eastern country brought by the plunge in oil prices in the world market.

The OFWs, through the help of state lawyers, won the case over their unsettled pay in Saudi Arabia but until now they still have not received their back wages.

To recall, Bello instructed the Overseas Workers Welfare Administration and Philippine Overseas Employment Authority to study the imposition of deployment ban to Saudi Arabia

“‘Pag hindi ma-settle ‘yan, I don’t think I will have any valid reason to resume the deployment,” he said. — RSJ, GMA News