Saudi OFWs get what they want The Manila Times – The Manila Times

The oppressive Kafala system has been so detested by overseas Filipino workers in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia that when the Saudi government recently announced its abolition, OFWs were euphoric about it. In text messages, in posts on social media, in phone calls and in letters, Saudi OFWs congratulated one another for a hard-won victory even as they conveyed the festive air to their loved ones in the Philippines.

The Kafala system has been the one single fetter that placed foreign workers in Saudi Arabia under the total mercy of their employees. Under the system, workers are bound to surrender their travel documents to their employers immediately upon start of their employment. This arrangement has given employers a wide leeway of oppressive control over workers because no matter what the employers do to them, they cannot complain, much less run away. The scheme has given rise to such extreme cases as maltreatments, severe physical harm, rape and even murder.

On March 14 next year, the Kafala system will be a thing of the past. That is when the Saudi government will start implementing its abolition.

I have a daughter, a nurse, working in a hospital in Riyadh who at various times in the past urged me to take up the cause of the Saudi OFWs. She has been telling me that as a nurse, she experiences none of the constrictions suffered by most Filipino workers in the KSA, but she has been worrying about the plight of lowly employees like domestic helpers and construction workers, and she has been asking me if I could do something about it.I would much like to help certainly, but who am I to do it?

The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) accounts for one of the most numerous overseas Filipino workers in the Middle East, counting 865,121 by Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) figures as of December 2019. My daughter has been one among them since 2012, when she began working as a private nurse to the grandchild of a Princess of Saudi Arabia.

She stayed in the job for two years, after which she returned to the Philippines to gain experience in hospital work, and with this stint for a period of two years done, she returned to Saudi to work in a hospital in Riyadh; of late, she has transferred employment there without much ado.

Anyway, my daughters urgings finally prompted me to do some inquiry, which disclosed that the Philippine government had been concerned about the Kafala system and had been taking steps to solve the problem without much fanfare. That was enough assurance to me at least that my daughters worries were being addressed.

In 2017, during the tenure of Taguig Rep. Alan Peter Cayetano as secretary of Foreign Affairs, he took the cudgels for the Saudi OFWs in their struggle against the Kafala system. He brought the issue before international fora, particularly the United Nations, advocating for the systems abolition.

Much water, so to speak, has run under the bridge since then, with Cayetano again completely immersed in politics, regaining his previous post as congressman of Taguig onward to becoming speaker of the House of Representatives. This development has had a way of distracting public attention from the earnest effort he did in trying to solve the problem of OFWs in Saudi Arabia. How many have known, for instance, that he was awarded by President Rodrigo Duterte the Order of Sikatuna with the rank of Datu when he left the DFA in 2018? Much of that award must be owed to his service to OFWs the world over.

Sad that human nature makes you remembered more for one bad talk about you than for the many actual good deeds you have done.

My daughter has not realized it, but her pushing me on the issue of the Kafala system has led me to unearthing things otherwise already archived in peoples memory the increase from P400 million to P1 billion in the allocation for the Assistance to Nationals (ATN) fund; in the Legal Assistance Fund (LAF) from P100 million to P200 million. A source cited 14,995 OFW beneficiaries of the ATN and 685 migrant Filipino workers facing charges receiving assistance through the LAF.

From time to time, we come across news of multitudes of OFWs stranded here and abroad because of typhoons and other natural calamities such as the Covid-19 pandemic. They get substantial relief from the above-cited ATN.

All these are attributed to Cayetano, along with other reforms at the DFA, including the launching of the Passport on Wheels, which hastened the process of passport application, and the opening of consular offices in Ilocos Norte, Isabela, Laguna, Bulacan, Cavite, Rizal, Davao del Norte, Misamis Occidental and Tarlac; the great improvement in the processing of passport applications from 9,500 to 20,000 daily; the increase in passport applicants show-up rate from 65 percent to 95 percent because of the introduction of the e-payment system, thereby curtailing issuance of fake passports; the provision of courtesy lanes for senior citizens, children and persons with disability passport applicants; and the ten-year validity of passports.

In March 2020, the Department of OFW bill authored by Cayetano passed the third and final reading before the House of Representatives. When the Senate passes its counterpart bill, OFWs get to have their own full-ensemble department to attend to all their needs.

A late information just reached me that the International Organization for Migration has lauded the abolition of the Kafala system as a game-changer. It should be, since the labor reforms undertaken by the Saudi Arabian government go a long way in protecting actually not just OFWs but also migrant workers of other nationalities in that country.