‘Bring home distressed OFWs from Kuwait’

Saying he can no longer allow any Filipino worker to die due to abuse by their employers abroad, President Dutert has directed Labor Secretary Silvestre Bello III to bring back home within 72 hours all Filipino service workers who want to return to the country.

In a briefing last night in Davao City, Duterte called on Philippine Airlines and Cebu Pacific to provide special flights to allow the repatriation of Filipinos from Kuwait. He said the discovery of the body of Joanna Daniella Demafelis is the last straw that broke the proverbial camel’s back.

He called the abuses of Filipino workers as a “recurring nightmare.”

Faced with the preliminary review of charges of drug-related killings before the International Criminal Court, Duterte said he would also be confronting Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda over what the ICC is doing over the abuses of Filipino workers in other countries.

“I will complain to her about this and they are happening, thousands of them,” he said.

Duterte then ordered Bello to work on the repatriation of the Filipino workers from Kuwait.

“We will count our lives by the hour. Every hour, there is suffering or agony upon Filipinos,” the President said.

At the start of his statement, Duterte fumed about receiving the report on the case of Demafelis, whose tortured body was found in a freezer of her employer.