Bello to return to KSA to bring home stranded overseas workers

Labor and Employment Secretary Silvestre Bello III is set to return to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) next week to bring home the estimated 6,000 remaining stranded overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) in Jeddah, Riyadh, and Al Khobar.

Bello said he was ordered by President Duterte to facilitate the immediate repatriation of the affected OFWs, who were displaced from large Saudi firms facing financial woes due to the dip in international oil prices.

“When I made the report on our stranded migrant workers, the President’s immediate reaction was (to order me to) go and get them back. Never mind the expense that we will incur. First go and get them back,” Bello told reporters in an interview.

The Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) earlier reported that around 11,000 OFWs are currently stranded in various areas in KSA.

Bello noted some of these OFWs have already returned to the country after the Saudi government decided to waive their penalties for their iqama or exit clearance.

He said the remaining OFWs in KSA were those who have yet to collect their monetary entitlements from their previous employers.

“So they would prefer to stay there and gamble to collect their unpaid wages. They are also clinging to the hope their employers will recover and still rehire them,” Bello said.

The DOLE chief, however, said he will try to convince them to just return to the country, as per Duterte’s instruction.