THE Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA) has released a resolution that will allow the deployment of returning Filipino workers to Libya, after the imposition of a total deployment ban last year.
POEA Administrator Bernard P. Olalia said at a briefing on Tuesday: “As a result of the DFA (Department of Foreign Affairs) lowering the Crisis Alert Level in Libya from Alert level 3 to Level 2, we now allow the processing of the Balik-Manggagawa (returning workers) to Libya.”
In Governing Board Resolution (GBR) No. 1, series of 2019 issued on Jan. 28, POEA said Foreign Affairs Secretary Teodoro L. Locsin, Jr. wrote to Labor Secretary and POEA Governing Board Chairperson Silvestre H. Bello III regarding the lowering the crisis alert level.
“The POEA governing board… resolves to allow the processing and deployment of all Balik-Manggagawa to Libya,” the resolution stated.
The POEA issued GBR No. 8, Series of 2018 in November which imposed the ban on newly-hired workers but exempted returning OFWs “under specified skill categories.”
The exemptions include OFWs employed by diplomats, embassies, international organizations and academic institutions; OFWs working in offshore oil rigs; those who were on vacation before the announcement of Crisis Alert level 3; and Filipinos married to Libyan nationals.
The Overseas Filipino Workers Organization-Benghazi (OFWO-B) appealed to POEA in December for the inclusion of engineers, company employees, nurses, and teachers in the Libya travel ban exemption. — Gillian M. Cortez
