FOLLOWING the news on the Qatar diplomatic crisis, the Philippine Government suspended the deployment of overseas Filipino workers to Qatar.
This was announced by Labor Secretary Silvestre Bello III on Tuesday, a day after the Arab Gulf countries (namely, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, and Kingdom of Bahrain) decided to cut diplomatic ties with Qatar.
Last Tuesday afternoon, the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration 7 (POEA 7) stopped all processing for Qatar deployment.
As of yesterday, no families have gone to the Overseas Workers Welfare Association to ask for assistance yet. A number of OFWs visited the office to bring up their concerns with flying back to Qatar.
Lineth, 48, a nurse based in Qatar with her husband Oswald, 48, and two kids, came back to the country with her whole family for their annual vacation.
She shared her growing worry about whether or not their flight to Qatar would push through.
“Our flight is scheduled on Friday. Everything from our vacation days, ‘back to work’ days, and the kids’ school days are already scheduled. We don’t know whether or not we can go back yet because they said it is ‘until further notice.’ We just want to clarify whether or not we can fly, so we can plan what to do next. There are a lot of us OFWs from Qatar here with the same dilemma. This just happened two days ago, and my friends in Qatar are even posting pictures of people panic-buying and stocking up on food because 40 percent of the food supply in Qatar apparently passes through Saudi, and now it’s closed off. But I don’t know, because we’re here, and it’s only the third day (since it happened). Although, the Philippine Embassy in Qatar told us (overseas workers) that we don’t have to worry,” said Lineth.
Her husband Oswald jokingly said, “I’m just worried I’ll run out of money.”
According to POEA 7 records, 2,746 OFWs were deployed to Qatar last year, while 750 OFWs were already deployed between January to May 2017.
For the month of May alone, most of the jobs that these OFWs took were in the fields of engineering, technical work, teaching, aircraft attending, and nursing.