By Arjay L. Balinbin

The Kuwaiti government has granted the Philippines’ request to extend its amnesty program for Filipino workers who have overstayed their visa, Philippine Ambassador to Kuwait Renato Pedro O. Villa said.

In a statement on Tuesday night, Feb. 20, the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) confirmed that the “amnesty program for Filipinos in Kuwait has been extended by two months until April 22.”

The information, according to the DFA, is based on Mr. Villa’s latest report to Foreign Affairs Secretary Alan Peter S. Cayetano.

“Ambassador Villa informed the Secretary that the order for the extension of the three-week amnesty that was supposed to end on Thursday was signed today by Kuwait Interior Minister Sheikh Khalid Al-Jarrah Al-Sabah,” the foreign affairs department said.

This decision, according to the DFA, “came less than a week after Mr. Cayetano formally conveyed the extension request to Kuwaiti Ambassador Mousaed Al-Thwaikh in Manila.”

Mr. Cayetano said “the extension is being requested to allow the Embassy to accommodate more of the 10,800 Filipinos believed to have overstayed their visas or ran away from their employers as only close to 3,000 of those qualified have applied so far.”

“[The] DFA remains in close coordination with Labor Secretary Silvestre H. Bello III and the Department of Labor and Employment (DoLE) to ensure a successful outcome of negotiations with the Kuwaiti Government to improve protection mechanisms for the more than 250,000 Filipinos working there,” he added.

For his part, President Rodrigo R. Duterte said he is not yet ready to lift the OFW deployment ban to Kuwait.

“I’m not ready to lift it now. I was outraged by what happened there… We will have to come up with a[n] agreement. Like passports taken by the employer, no day off, they are only allowed to sleep for almost four hours, three hours, and sometimes their meals are garbage. These are the things that have to be sorted out before I will agree to deploy Filipinos outside,” Mr. Duterte said during his speech at the induction ceremony of the new board of directors of the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce Phils. Inc. (FICCI) held at the Malacañan Palace on Tuesday night.

The President also noted that the Philippines has been losing skilled workers.

“Problem is there are constructions that have stopped building and everything and even in my place, Davao, because we have lost our skilled workers. They are trained but they are all in the Middle East, so we do not have the workers now,” Mr. Duterte said.

He added that the government is currently “trying to entice [the skilled Filipino workers] to come back to the Philippines to work.”

[Come back to the shores…The Philippines is growing a little bit, moving faster than usual,” he said.

“So these are the things which should [be solved]. There’s a dearth of skilled workers. And it’s because of the many years of hardships, they were forced to migrate to other places,” the President added.

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