BAHRAIN NEEDS MORE OVERSEAS FILIPINO WORKERS

Bahrain wants more overseas Filipino workers. However, while the small Arab monarchy in the Persian Gulf prefers Filipinos over other nationalities, it points out the extremely slow processing in the deployment of OFWs.

Labor Secretary Silvestre Bello III pointed this out in a press briefing held at the Four Seasons Hotel in Manama, Bahrain, following his meeting with Bahrain’s assistant labor secretary.

“He was telling me that the processing in the Philippine government of our migrant workers takes about six weeks and in the case of Indonesia and India, ony two weeks,” said Bello.

“So on that premise, I told the assistant secretary of labor: ‘Let us prepare an agreement and we will reduce the processing from six weeks to one week.

He almost jumped with joy and he promised to go to the Philippines on May 8 where they expect to sign a memorandum of agreement regarding the deployment of our overseas workers.”

Based on this, the labor chief said it is clear that Bahrain prefers Filipino migrant workers.

“Not only in Bahrain but in the whole world, I think,” said Bello. ” (Bahrain’s assistant secretary of labor) noted the competence, the patience, and the trustworthiness of our overseas workers.”

“That is the positive development,” he added. “They want to get more but we have now 16,000 OFWs in a population of 1.3-M. So that is a very substantial role that we have, the presence of our OFWs.”