Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) Secretary Silvestre Bello III urged workers to report employers that are imposing a "no vaccine, no salary" policy as he reiterated that the practice is illegal.
DOLE Secretary Silvestre Bello III (Photo from DOLE Facebook page) In a virtual media bri
Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) Secretary Silvestre Bello III has vowed to push for the improvement of migrant workers' employment contracts during the first meeting of the International Labour Organization's (ILO) Government Sector in Switzerland this month.
(Jansen Romero / FILE PHOTO
Labor Secretary Silvestre Bello III (File photo) MANILA - Labor Secretary Silvestre Bello III on Thursday said he requested permission from President Rodrigo Duterte to consider the possibility of a ban on deployment of overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) to Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) due to "still" unpaid wages worth PHP4.6 billion. "I sent a memorandum to the President requesting his permission to consider a deployment ban to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia kung hindi nila mababayaran 'yun pera na pinaghirapan ng ating mga OFW for so many years. So 'yun po ang plano, pag-aralan namin (if they cannot pay the money that our OFWs have worked for so many years. So that's the plan, we'll study it)," he said during the Laging Handa briefing. In 2016, Bello said 11,000 OFWs in Saudi Arabia have not received their salaries, prompting Duterte to authorized "me to bring all of them home." "We repatriated our compatriots involving about PHP3 billio
Labor Secretary Silvestre Bello III (PNA photo by Joey Razon) MANILA - Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) Secretary Silvestre Bello III on Wednesday said he is not closing his doors to running in next year's polls, despite skipping the filing the certificate of candidacy (COC) period last week. "There is a possibility. It will depend on what will be good for our country. If the opportunity will come, probably I would consider it. But in the meantime, I'm taking care of this very big problem of our workers first. The number of job losses, so many," Bello said in a virtual forum. The labor chief said it was his brother, Silvestre Jr., who filed his candidacy for senator under the ruling party Partido Demokratiko Pilipino-Lakas ng Bayan (PDP-Laban) on October 8, the last day of the filing period. "That's my brother. I can't stop him," he said. The DOLE chief added that he was quite surprised when he learned that his brother filed his COC. "I