OFWs can stay in Afghanistan - Ochoa

MANILA, Philippines - Thousands of overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) can stay in Afghanistan despite the ban on deployment of OFWs to the war-torn country, Executive Secretary Paquito Ochoa Jr. said yesterday.

Ochoa told the House appropriations committee that the government will not ask the workers to return home or their employers to send them back.

“They can remain there for the duration of their contracts. My recommendation to President Aquino is that if the workers are rehired, they need not go back and can continue working there for as long as they feel safe,” he said.

He indicated that if the workers return home, they might be covered by the deployment ban.

“The ban is a different issue. We are not lifting it,” Ochoa said in response to questions raised by Zambales Rep. Mitos Magsaysay.

Magsaysay said she received information from some workers in Afghanistan that their employers were waiting for word from the government on whether they could continue working there despite the deployment ban.

“They are working for private companies and NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) contractors inside secured compounds. They don’t want to go home because they don’t know what future awaits them here,” she said.

“They are sending thousands of US dollars to their families. I understand that the minimum monthly salary they receive is $1,000. Engineers among them are paid as much as $20,000,” she said.

Magsaysay urged the government to rethink its ban on the deployment of Filipino workers to countries affected by internal strife like Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya.

“I cannot understand the safety and security concerns our officials have in mind. Even in countries where there is no such ban like Saudi Arabia, our workers get raped, abused or killed,” she stressed.

For that matter, Filipinos are not safe in their own country, she said.

Like OFWs in Afghanistan, Filipinos working in Iraq are in danger of losing their jobs.

The US military and American security contractors have served notice that they would send their Filipino workers home because of the policy prohibiting the deployment of workers to Iraq.

The remaining OFWs in Libya, who are reportedly mostly nurses, are not taking government repatriation offers as they are not sure if there are jobs awaiting them here.

Malacañang said yesterday it would review a proposal for a selective ban on the deployment of OFWs to Afghanistan.

Some 6,000 OFWs working in the US bases in Afghanistan may be repatriated due to the ban.

In its Sept. 17, 2010 order, the US Central Command directed all its contractors in Afghanistan to immediately work on the repatriation of workers whose home country prohibited them from working in the war-stricken country.

The Philippine government issued the deployment ban in Afghanistan in 2001.    – With Aurea Calica, Perseus Echeminada