The government of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) is expected to pay P4.6 billion in unpaid salaries to 9,000 overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) who were forced to return to the Philippines after they stopped receiving remuneration amid the coronavirus pandemic.
In a statement Sunday, Labor Secretary Silvestre Bello III said he is optimistic the payment will be made when Saudi Labor Minister Ahmed al-Rajhi visits the country in December this year.
“So, the unpaid salaries of our OFWs can be settled just in time for Christmas,” the Labor chief said.
Bello was in KSA last week to attend the Abu Dhabi Dialogue, a forum for talks and cooperation between Asian Countries of labor origin and destination.
It aims to enable safe, orderly, and regular labor migration in some of the Saudi world’s largest temporary labor migration corridors.
Before the dialog, Bello said he was invited by Al-Rajhi for a private meeting where the KSA labor executive appealed for the lifting of the suspension on Arab mega recruitment agencies, which were responsible for the deployment of OFWs whose salaries and benefits remained unpaid.
Bello said he assured Al Rahji the Philippines would lift the deployment ban in exchange for the payment of salaries of the OFWs.
Repatriated by the government in 2016, the unpaid OFWs, through the help of state lawyers, won the case over their unsettled pay in KSA.
Despite the legal victory, however, the Saudi government refused to pay the OFWs.
“But our government is really thankful that the meeting with the KSA labor minister was fruitful,” Bello said.
President Duterte sent Bello to KSA in 2016 to help the beleaguered OFWs. “Now, our migrant workers can now have a merry Christmas,” he added.
Meanwhile, the Labor department cautioned Filipinos aspiring to work overseas to be wary of spurious job offers online.
This was after the Philippine Overseas Labor Office (POLO) in Madrid, Spain received a request to verify an online job offer for a fruit farm cashier position in the country with a salary of 3,000 or 6,000 Euros (P175,000 to P350,000).
With numerous job offers proliferating in social media, POLO Madrid Labor Attaché Joan Lourdes Lavilla advised job seekers to be careful in entertaining ‘too good to be true’ job opportunities abroad.
“We advise jobseekers to be very cautious. Scammers use names of legitimate companies and when you look at the job offer, it is usually too good to be true. They also give mobile numbers only. One tip is to check their given address using Google maps because sometimes there is no actual structure or company,” said the Labor Attaché in a virtual briefing.
She also said that another indication of a scam is when an applicant is being required to send out money to an individual through a remittance center.
“What our kababayan did was right. She checked with us first before grabbing the 'job opportunity',” she added.
Overseas job seekers may visit the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration’s website at https://www.poea.gov.ph/ to verify the legitimacy of job offers.
Lavilla said that with the lifting of COVID-19 restrictions in Spain, more overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) are now back to work. She also shared that Spanish employers prefer Filipino workers because of their capacity to speak and understand the English language.
OFWs in POLO Madrid’s jurisdiction, which includes Spain, Andorra, France, Portugal, and Monaco, are composed of household service workers; hotel and restaurant staff; and professionals like information technology personnel, researchers, managers, and nurses.