MANILA: The Philippine government has lifted a total deployment ban on Egypt in view of the continued improvement in the political and security situation there, a senior official said yesterday.
Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA) chief Hans Leo Cacdac said that the POEA Governing Board has lifted the deployment ban on Egypt after the Philippine Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) further lowered the crisis alert level in the said country from Level 3 to Level 2 or restriction phase.
Under Alert Level 2, he said the processing and deployment of workers shall be allowed only for overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) returning to their current employers and are with existing employment contracts as determined by POEA.
However, he added the deployment ban for newly-hired OFWs shall be maintained.
In August this year, the DFA raised the crisis alert level in Egypt to 4, which led to the mandatory repatriation of OFWs and issuance of a total deployment ban on Egypt.
There are around 6,000 Filipinos in Egypt, listing a total of 1,353 OFWs.
The Philippine star
