Saudi unlikely to settle unpaid OFW wages this year
By John Victor D. Ordoñez, Reporter
A FINAL settlement on the unpaid wages of more than 10,000 Saudi Arabia-based overseas Filipino workers (OFW) is unlikely to materialize this year even with promises given by the Saudi government to Manila in November.
“The DFA will be frank — early this year our embassy [in Saudi Arabia] reported that it is not realistic to expect the payment to come this year,” Foreign Affairs (DFA) Undersecretary Eduardo Jose A. de Vega told a Senate migrant workers committee hearing on Thursday.
Senator Rafael “Raffy” T. Tulfo, who heads the committee, had asked officials from DFA and the Department of Migrant Workers (DMW) why they have not issued a definite date for the settlement.
The Saudi government promised President Ferdinand R. Marcos, Jr. it would settle the unpaid wages and other benefits of Filipino workers who were laid off by private Saudi employers from 2015 to 2016.
The commitment was made during bilateral talks at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Summit in Bangkok, Thailand in November.
Mr. De Vega said the embassy report he was quoting came before a trip made by DMW officials to Saudi Arabia a few months after the commitment was given to the President.
Mr. Tulfo advised DMW and DFA to avoid issuing premature announcements that the wages would be paid to avoid giving OFWs false hope.
“We keep saying that the wages will be paid, but we should also pressure those in Saudi Arabia to give us an exact date of when these will be given,” he said in Filipino.
Migrant Workers Undersecretary Bernard P. Olalia said a Saudi minister would visit the country later this year to coordinate with state officials about the settlement.
In March, Migrant Workers Secretary Maria Susanna V. Ople said Saudi Arabia would hire about a million skilled Filipino workers in the next 18 to 24 months through a special employment program.
