POEA Board Bans Deployment of OFWs to Yemen

Labor and Employment Secretary Rosalinda Dimapilis-Baldoz yesterday announced that the Governing Board of the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration, of which she is the Chairperson, has approved a resolution imposing a total ban on the processing and deployment of all OFWs to Yemen, both returning and newly-hired, effective immediately.

The ban is contained in Governing Board Resolution No. 27, Series of 2014, signed by Baldoz; Hans Leo J. Cacdac, POEA Administrator and Vice-Chair of the Governing Board; and members Felix M. Oca, Estrelita S. Hizon, Alexander E. Asuncion, and Milagros Isabel A. Cristobal.

In raising the crisis alert level for Yemen, the DFA, in a letter to the POEA Governing Board, said that while the current situation in Sana’a, Yemen is relatively peaceful following the signing on 21 September of a UN-brokered Peace and Partnership Agreement between Houthi rebels and the Yemeni government, Houthi forces remain in Sana’a and have imposed their control on checkpoints and some government buildings.

“They also continue to enter the homes of previous government ministers who they have targeted and identified as pro-Isla, the country’s main Islamist Sunni party and the Houthis’ biggest rival,” the DFA said in its letter.

The total deployment ban is in accordance with the raising by the Department of Foreign Affairs of the Crisis Alert Level for Yemen from Alert Level 2, or Restriction Phase, to Alert Level 3, or Voluntary Repatriation Phase.

The DFA further said “the Peace and Partnership Agreement is complex and difficult to implement, and therefore, Yemen’s future as a country remains uncertain.” Furthermore, it said the senior political adviser to the UN Special Envoy to Yemen has not dismissed the possibility that other groups, such as the Hirak Movement in the south of Yemen, who are separatists; Sunni Salafists, and the Islah Party, as well as the terrorist group Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, will try to take advantage of the unsettled situation, rendering the situation unpredictable.

In the country’s Crisis Alert Level System, Alert Level 3 is issued when violent disturbances or external aggression occur in a limited area and that Filipinos in this area are enjoined to return to the Philippines and the DOLE automatically imposes absolute deployment ban.

“The POEA Governing Board automatically issues a total ban on the processing and deployment of all OFWs under Alert Level 3 and the government encourages OFWs remaining in a certain area to go home to the Philippines,” said Baldoz, adding: “I encourage every OFWs in Yemen to be very vigilant and to contact the Philippine Embassy in Yemen for their trip back to the Philippines.”

The POEA Governing Board re-imposed a total ban on the processing and deployment of both returning and newly-hired OFWs to Yemen on 10 December 2013 following the bomb attack at the Yemeni defense ministry complex on 5 December that resulted to the death of seven Filipinos and injury to 11 other OFWs.

On 13 February 2014, the Governing Board issued GBR No. 2 Series of 2014 allowing the re-deployment of returning OFWs to Yemen, subject to proof of existing employment as determined by the POEA, but maintaining the processing and deployment ban for newly-hired OFWs.

The lifting of the ban came after the signing of the Peace and Partnership Agreement between the Houthis and the Yemeni government.

The POEA said deployment of OFWs to Yemen in 2013 reached only 646, with 571 of them re-hires and 75 new hires.

Baldoz said that with the imposition of the total ban to Yemen, she has instructed the Philippine Overseas Labor Office in Riyadh, which exercises jurisdiction over OFW affairs in Yemen, to closely coordinate with Philippine Embassy officials in Riyadh and in Yemen in continually monitoring the situation with the end in view of securing the welfare and protection of OFWs in that country.

She also advised OFWs in Yemen to return to the Philippines.

Should the situation in Yemen worsens demanding voluntary or mandatory repatriation, Baldoz said the government, through the DOLE, is prepared to provide returning OFWs from Yemen appropriate assistance services and programs under the new “Assist WELL Program”, a reintegration package that addresses the Welfare, Employment, Legal, and Livelihood needs of repatriated OFWs.

Source: PCOO, www.dole.gov.ph