Possible ban very much on OFWs’ minds

Overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) in 41 countries earlier certified by the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) as unsafe to work in and thus were covered by a deployment ban issued by the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration are still apprehensive about their fate despite the DFA’s withdrawal of the certifications, a migrants welfare advocacy group said Sunday.

The Ople Center said OFWs, foreign employers and host governments continued to express “bewilderment, if not shock” over the earlier imposition of the ban.

“They (OFWs) were hurt that they would have lost their jobs not because of their performance but because of a policy that they were not even aware of,” Ople Center president Susan Ople said in a statement.

Ople said this could be gleaned from the e-mail exchanges and Facebook discussions among affected workers in the 41 countries.

“We are in touch with Filipinos in Cambodia, the Cayman Islands, Turks and Caicos Islands, and India who have expressed shock and concern over the inclusion of their host countries in the 41-country deployment ban. This shows that consultations between the embassies and consulates in some of these countries with the OFW communities did not take place at all,” she said.

One of the e-mails received by the center came from Robert Llamas, a senior finance controller working for a government institution in the Cayman Islands.

Llamas said, “Cayman is an overseas territory of the United Kingdom and its governor is appointed by Her Majesty the Queen. It has existing labor laws, labor tribunals and a government agency that oversees how these laws are implemented. Filipinos are well-loved here.”

Ople said Filipinos in India were also against the deployment ban and were set to write a formal letter to the Philippine Embassy in New Delhi.

Eufemio Nilles, a Filipino based in the southeastern Indian state of Andra Pradesh, said, India had labor and social laws to protect all workers.

“This is a work in progress in anticipation of the DFA’s impending review of its certifications,” Ople said. The ban was suspended for three months while it is reviewed. Jerome Aning