KUWAIT: Philippines Ambassador Expelled From Kuwait Over Mistreatment Of Domestic Workers.

The Philippines has demanded an explanation for Kuwait's decision to expel its ambassador amid a dispute over the treatment of domestic workers.

The two nations have been attempting to resolve the dispute since February, when the body of a murdered Filipina maid was discovered in Kuwait.

But last week videos emerged showing embassy staff rescuing Filipinos allegedly abused by their employers.

Kuwait condemned the violation of its laws and told the ambassador to leave.

Four Filipinos hired by the embassy were also arrested by Kuwaiti police and arrest warrants issued against three diplomatic personnel, according to the Philippines.

Last Saturday, the Philippine foreign ministry published two video clips said to show teams from the embassy in Kuwait carrying out rescues of Filipino domestic workers.

In one, a woman is seen running from a block of flats and being helped into a waiting car by a man.

On Wednesday, the Kuwaiti foreign ministry announced it had declared Philippine ambassador Renato Pedro Villa persona non grata and asked him to leave the country within a week.

A statement accused Philippine embassy staff and others of smuggling Filipino maids in flagrant violation of Kuwait's laws and international diplomatic rules.

It also vowed to chase down those responsible and put them on trial.

The Philippines apologised but stressed that the embassy had been responding to the calls for assistance by Filipino nationals in distress.

On Thursday, the Philippine foreign ministry said it had served a diplomatic note to the Kuwaiti embassy in Manila conveying its strong surprise and great displeasure at the expulsion of Mr Villa and the detention of the four Filipinos hired by the embassy.

The ministry summoned Kuwaiti Ambassador Saleh Ahmad Althwaikh to protest but was informed by the embassy that he had been recalled for consultations.

The ministry said Mr Althwaikh had assured Foreign Minister Alan Peter Cayetano on Tuesday that Mr Villa was welcome to stay in Kuwait until the end of his tour of duty and that the arrested embassy employees would be released from custody.

According to the ministry, the ambassador had also promised to:

Facilitate the repatriation of more than 800 Filipinos staying in shelters in Kuwait run by the Philippine embassy.

Treat humanely any Filipinos detained after the expiry on Sunday of an amnesty for overstaying visas.

Ensure justice for pending and future cases filed by Filipinos who were victims of serious abuse.

In February, President Rodrigo Duterte ordered Filipinos working in Kuwait to return home after the body of Filipina maid Joanna Demafelis was found inside a freezer in an abandoned apartment, more than a year after she was reported missing.

Her employers, Lebanese national Nader Essam Assaf and his Syrian wife Mona, have been sentenced to death in absentia for killing her.

Mr Assaf is being detained in Lebanon while Ms Assaf is in custody in Syria, where the couple were arrested.

The Philippines on Monday expanded a ban on its citizens working in Kuwait after President Rodrigo Duterte angrily lashed out at the Gulf state over reports of Filipino workers suffering abuse and exploitation.

Authorities say 252,000 Filipinos work in Kuwait, many as maids. They are among over two million employed in the region, whose remittances are a lifeline to the Philippine economy.

But Labour Secretary Silvestre Bello Monday announced a total ban on new employment in the country, including Filipinos who had already obtained employment permits but had not yet left for Kuwait.

Authorities have not ruled out revoking the permits of Filipinos currently working in Kuwait or of previous hires returning on new contracts.

With the advent of the series of reports involving abuses and deaths of overseas Filipino workers in Kuwait, a total ban on deployment of all overseas workers ... is hereby enforced,” Bello said, reading an order.

This order takes effect immediately.

The move would affect thousands of workers, labour spokeswoman Abegail de Vega said.

The fresh move came after Duterte last month barred Filipinos from seeking work in Kuwait, although the ban exempted those who had already secured permission.

Last Friday Duterte hit out at Kuwait as he brandished photos reportedly of a Filipina maid found in a freezer, saying she had been roasted like a pig.

Kuwait’s embassy in Manila declined to comment.

The Philippine foreign affairs department said Monday authorities were repatriating 10,000 overstaying Filipinos from Kuwait, taking advantage of an amnesty programme arranged with the Kuwaiti government.

Officials added they were eyeing China and Russia as alternative markets for overseas workers.



Tourism Observer

PHILIPPINES: Army Fights On, Despite Start Of Ramadan

Philippine security forces dropped more bombs Saturday on a southern city where they have been battling Islamist militants for five days, vowing no let up despite the start of Ramadan.

President Rodrigo Duterte declared martial law across the southern third of the Philippines in response to the clashes, which have claimed at least 48 lives and he has said are part of a campaign by the Islamic State group to establish a local caliphate.

"We have identified where they are consolidating so we are doing surgical air strikes to destroy the local terrorist group," local military spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Jo-ar Herrera said.

Truckloads of extra marines were also seen driving into Marawi, one of the biggest Muslim-populated cities in the mainly Catholic Philippines with about 200,000 residents.

The fighting erupted on Tuesday when dozens of gunmen went on a rampage throughout Marawi in response to an attempt by security forces to arrest Isnilon Hapilon, a veteran Filipino militant regarded as the local leader of IS.

They planted black IS flags, took a priest and up to 14 other people hostage from a church, and set fire to buildings.

Thirteen soldiers, two policemen and 31 militants have died in the fighting, according to authorities.

Two civilians were also confirmed killed inside a hospital that the gunmen had occupied on Tuesday, and the military has said it investigating reports that nine people were murdered at a checkpoint the militants had set up.

Duterte has vowed to extinguish the threat of the militants, whom he has said belong to the local Maute terrorist group but are being backed by criminals in the area.

Nevertheless, Duterte also said on Friday that he was prepared to talk with the group's leaders.

His spokesman, Ernesto Abella, said this was partly an offer made in the spirit of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, which began in the Philippines on Saturday.

Together we pray for an end to terrorism that falsely claims to advance Islam and seeks to subjugate our land to the brutal IS, Abella said in a statement.

In this spirit of Muslim peace, the president has offered the hand of peaceful dialogue to terrorist groups, to avoid bloodshed in this time of prayer, fasting and mercy.

However there appear to be an extremely small chance of talks, unless they are to negotiate the release of the hostages.

Military spokesman Herrera said the security operations to rid Marawi of the gunmen would continue despite the start of Ramadan.

It is painful for the Maranao (the name for local Muslims) that it is Ramadan but our action now is to protect Marawi,Herrera said.

These are the impacts of the local terrorist group's actions.

PHILIPPINES: Tourist Arrivals Increase By 10.5%

Despite "a war on drugs" that reportedly claimed the lives of over 7,000 people in less than a year, the Philippines is still growing in popularity as a holiday destination, the Undersecretary of Tourism, Benito Bengzon, has said.

Responding to a question about whether the perception was that the Philippines had become less safe since Rodrigo Duterte became president and began his violent crackdown on drugs, Bengzon said that he was “impartial to empirical data.”

“Foreign visitor arrivals in the first two months of 2017 grew by 10.5 per cent year on year. The Philippines saw similar levels of growth, around 10 per cent, throughout 2016,” said Bengzon, who is in Dubai promoting the Philippines as a holiday testination during the annual Arabian Travel Market event.

By comparison, the global average is around four per cent.

“We must be doing something right,” Bengzon added.

When Duterte was elected in May 2016, many predicted that the Philippines would suffer a sharp drop in tourism as a result of his promise of a war on drugs.

The president-elect had promised on the campaign trail to dump all of the “drug-pushers and do-nothings into Manila Bay, and fatten all the fish there.”

After taking office, he again declared that “there are three million drug addicts. I’d be happy to slaughter them.”

A Philippines tourism official in March even felt obliged to urge the local press to tone down its reports on drug-related killings, as they were hurting visitor numbers.

Yet despite these remarks, and indeed the realisation of his promised assault on criminals that has seen extrajudicial killings skyrocket and which Amnesty International has described as “the police’s murderous war on the poor,” tourism doesn’t seem to have been dented.

Inbound arrivals surged in January 2017 to 631,639, the highest ever recorded in a single month by the Pacific nation, according to statistics from the Department of Tourism.
Target: 7 million tourists

“We have set a target of seven million visitors in 2017, and we are on track to achieve that,” Bengzon said.

“It’s very clear what our mission is: to step up our advertising and promotions in key markets around the world,” he said.

When asked if he felt frustrated that his efforts at promoting the country abroad were being hampered by the headlines of violence that dominate coverage of the Philippines, the Undersecretary said that “there’s no way to control the perception of the outside world.”

When talking about how to fight this negative public image, he said that “we try to insulate tourism from the political goings-on.”

“We know our deliverables in respect to headcount, yield per tourist, and the number of people we want employed by tourism. We try to focus on those deliverables,” he added.

The country is looking to double the number of Filipino’s employed in the tourism sector from roughly four million currently, to eight million by 2022.

Multiple studies have found that human rights violations, and violence in general, can cause a steep decline in tourism, particularly as travellers are often quick to swap their holiday destinations for somewhere safer.

In recent years, both Egypt and Turkey have seen tourism numbers to popular holiday destinations such as Sharm Al Shaikh and Bodrum plummet following terror attacks as holidaymakers opt for more serene alternatives such as Morocco or Italy.

In addition to its war on drugs, the Philippines is also contending with Daesh-linked group Abu Sayyaf in the south, a conflict that recently spilt over to popular tourist island Bohol, where there was a skirmish between militants and the army.
3,500 daily bookings from S. Korea alone

“The first thing we do when we hear about situations like the one in Bohol, is ask how we’ll be affected. That’s always the first question. The second question is, have there been cancellations?” Bengzon said.

According to the Undersecretary, when he called the Philippines’ tourism office in South Korea, his colleagues informed him that there had only been 150 cancellations.

“When you compare that to the 3,500 or more bookings we receive from South Korea every single day, it doesn’t seem so bad,” he said.

“Will the 150 hurt us? You be the judge,” Bengzon added with a smile.

PHILIPPINES: Ask Duterte To Stop Killings, Journalists Tell Tourism Secretary Wanda Teo

National Union of Journalists of the Philippines (NUJP) on Friday responded to the statement of Department of Tourism Secretary Wanda Teo asking the media to “tone down” reports on extrajudicial killings in the country.

Tourism Secretary Wanda Teo on Wednesday urged the media to “tone down” their coverage of the Duterte administration’s war on drugs, saying it was making it hard to sell the Philippines as a tourist destination

She addressed the same plea to Vice President Leni Robredo, who sent a video message last week to a UN gathering in Vienna denouncing the alleged summary execution of over 7,000 Filipinos in the antinarcotics campaign.

In a statement, the NUJP said Teo was right, and asked, “how, indeed, do you sell a tropical paradise when you have more than 7,000 deaths and counting and a leader who almost gleefully predicts even more as he wages his ‘war on drugs’?”

“Sadly, Ms. Teo, while we do wish for more tourists to visit and boost our economy, our job is to report what is happening, not sweep this under the rug as part of a PR campaign,” the NUJP said.

“It would be better if, instead of asking us to “tone down” the killings, you ask the President to order an end to them.

That way, we could truthfully report that the killing season is over and the Philippines is, well, “more fun,”” it added.

Critics have blamed Duterte for more than 7,000 deaths since he assumed office in July last year. However, the police said only about 2,500 of these were from antidrug operations after suspects allegedly violently resisted arrest.

They added about 40 were policemen or soldiers killed by drug suspects.

Most of the other deaths have been classified as Deaths Under Investigation, or DUI, which may include deaths not related to drugs or the war on drugs.

Amid the war on drugs, over one-million drug personalities have either surrendered or been arrested alive in thousands of anti-narcotics operations nationwide.

Meanwhile, Tourism Assistant Secretary Ricky Alegre on Friday defended Teo, saying that the department chief’s remarks was only a “candid” response, and urged the people to look more on the whole context of her statement.

“I think naging candid lang siya, so to speak, noong tinanong siya (I think she was just candid, so to speak, when she was asked). Natural, every negative report affects tourism directly,” Alegre said.

“Ang importante, we are aware of the criticisms at mga reports. Hindi tumitigil ang DOT na magpromote na safe pumunta sa Pilipinas,” he added. (What’s important is that we are aware of the criticisms and the reports. The DOT isn’t stopping its promotion of the Philippines as a safe destination.)