THE government is set to review its labor agreement with Kuwait following the recent gruesome death of a Filipino domestic helper in the emirate, Malacañang said Sunday.

The Presidential Communications Office (PCO) said that Department of Migrant Workers (DMW) Secretary Susan Ople issued the order to revisit and review the said pact to further protect overseas Filipino workers (OFW) deployed In Kuwait.

Aside from the labor deal, Ople also directed the reevaluation of the recruitment process and standards for Filipinos wishing to work abroad to ensure their best interests.

This includes the thorough checking of the track records of recruitment agencies.

“Only agencies with clean track records will be allowed to deploy OFWs to Kuwait,” the PCO quoted DMW Undersecretary Hans Leo Cacdac in a statement.

“We also have a directive to look at the system of how they recruit to further protect OFWs going to Kuwait,” he added.

The bilateral labor agreement, which was signed in 2018, expired in May 2022 and was automatically renewed due to the automatic renewal clause, Cacdac said.

It was during the leadership of then President Rodrigo Duterte when the Department of Labor and Employment imposed a temporary ban on the deployment of workers to Kuwait over reported abuses against them.

This led to the revision of a labor deal between the two countries, which included a clause guaranteeing food, housing, clothing and health insurance to Filipino workers. The renewal of employment contracts will also be upon the approval of Philippine officials.

To date, there are 268,000 Filipinos in Kuwait, with 195,000 working as domestic workers.

Meanwhile, the DMW is now in the process of providing additional assistance to the family of Jullebee Ranara, the 35-year-old Filipino who met a brutal death at the hands of her employers’ 17-year-old son.

Ople has directed the immediate aid to the grieving loved ones of Ranara under the mandatory entitlements for Filipino migrant workers under the Overseas Workers Welfare Administration (OWWA).

Ranara’s remains arrived in the country last Friday evening.

Ople to assess MWO performance

The DMW will also send a fact-finding team to Kuwait to assess the performance of its Migrant Workers Office (MWO), formerly known as Philippine Overseas Labor Office.

“We in the department must go by an evidenced-based approach to labor reform policies. Given also the increase in deployment and welfare numbers in Kuwait last year, it is imperative that we look at the root causes behind these numbers,” Ople said in a virtual press briefing over the weekend.

Undersecretary Bernard Olalia has been tasked to organize the fact-finding mission to be led by a senior labor attaché posted outside Kuwait.

The team will assess the MWO performance and response time to welfare cases.

“With more than a hundred thousand household service workers in Kuwait, the DMW must increase the monitoring and response mechanisms of our MWO,”Ople said.

Among the parameters the factfinding team will review include a comparative study on the number of welfare cases of distressed OFWs over five years, what triggered the rise in these cases, the response time of both Philippine and Kuwaiti authorities and recruitment agencies in addressing calls for assistance, and how engaged are foreign recruitment agencies in monitoring their workers and screening employers.

“We will look at the inordinately high welfare cases in Kuwait over the past several months. We will also look if there have been lapses on the part of the Migrant Workers Office in terms of welfare assistance for our OFWs. The report of the fact-finding mission will be submitted to my office for appropriate action,” Ople explained.

She made the announcement following the arrival of the remains of Ranara, whose body was burned beyond recognition and thrown in the middle of the desert.

Ople reported that the DMW, through the OWWA, has coordinated with the National Bureau of Investigation for an autopsy on Jullebee’s remains.

Meanwhile, Olalia confirmed that separate recruitment violation cases will be filed against Catalist International Manpower Services Co. and Platinum International Office for Recruitment of Domestic Manpower, the Philippine and Kuwait recruitment agencies, respectively, that facilitated Ranara’s deployment.

Based on an initial investigation, both agencies failed to comply with the mandatory monitoring required of recruitment agencies to ensure the well-being of their deployed workers.

OWWA Administrator Arnell Ignacio, on the other hand, said that his office has been looking after the Ranara family.

Ignacio said they are now working for the early release of insurance and other financial claims to Ranara’s family.