MANILA — Philippines President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. said that the country plans to pursue talks with Saudi Arabia with regard to resumption of sending Filipino workers to the Kingdom before lifting Manila's ban in this respect. In his first State of the Nation Address on Monday after assuming presidency, he said the government plans to negotiate with the Kingdom on terms such as providing employees a decent wage and ensuring that their rights and welfare will be protected. Migrant Workers Secretary Susan Ople will be flying to Saudi Arabia in the next months to ensure that there will be enough forces to ensure that the deployment of Filipino workers to Saudi Arabia will resume and to pursue our campaign against human trafficking. Ople earlier said that she wants to iron out first guidelines on employment safety before lifting the deployment ban. The Philippines' Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) temporarily suspended the verification of employment contracts and suspended the deployment of overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) after thousands of workers were allegedly left with unpaid backwages with construction agencies. It is noteworthy that the Musaned portal, under the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Development, had suspended in December 2021 all requests to issue visas for Filipino domestic workers. This was in the wake of the Philippines Ministry of Labor's decision to suspend temporarily sending of its domestic workers to Saudi Arabia. Musaned is the portal launched by the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Development to deal with hiring of domestic workers. The Philippines embassy in Riyadh noted that the suspension of recruitment process was consequent to the adoption of the new regulations issued by the Ministry of Labor governing the contractual relationship between Filipino domestic workers and their foreign employers.
