AS many as 14,000 former overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) may be declared eligible for back wages once the host government validates their qualifications, the Department of Migrant Workers (DMW) has said.
“We have generated a list of around 12,000 claimants. We have an additional number of workers who can’t provide their Iqama numbers. We included them anyway as a separate list so that the Saudi government can verify them,” DMW Secretary Susan Ople said in an online media briefing over the weekend.
Last month, the DMW called on all displaced Saudi OFWs with pending back pay from their former KSA employers to register with the department, which is coordinating the payment of the back wages with the Saudi government.
Covered OFWs are those who were displaced and left unpaid way back in 2015 and 2016 after several Saudi construction firms shut down after declaring bankruptcy.
In November 2022, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman committed to shoulder the unpaid salaries of the displaced Filipino workers.
The issue of unpaid wages, according to Ople, will be one of the main agenda when the Philippines and Saudi Arabia hold bilateral talks this week.
The DMW chief was set to fly to KSA yesterday to hold several meetings with different officials of the Saudi government.
“We will be discussing with my counterpart the steps forward. Once there is an approved list of claimants or a unified list, what happens next?” said Ople.
In addition, she said they are also meeting with members of the private sector, as well as the Minister of Labor and Social Development and Minister of Commerce and Investment to “hopefully… open the doors to more jobs for our workers; better protection, especially for those in the ‘kasambahay’ category; improved wages, and resolution of the claims of unpaid wages,” said Ople.
