News from home: Rebooking outbound flights, BPI’s duplicate transactions
MANILA, Philippines — It was a rough first week of the year back home.
From passengers affected by the air traffic outage mess trying to rebook flights to online services of the Bank of the Philippine Islands becoming inaccessible for a day as management resolved duplicate transactions – these were among our headlines and news stories from the past week we think you should know if you’re a Filipino abroad.
Overseas Filipinos
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The Philippine Embassy in Riyadh is calling on former employees with pending claims against construction firm Saudi Oger Ltd. to register and complete documentary requirements through an online portal.
Migrant Workers Secretary Susan “Toots” Ople previously said the Saudi government would provide a compensation package worth $532 million to help displaced Filipino workers who lost their jobs in Saudi years ago. -
The Department of Migrant Workers formally ordered private recruitment agencies and licensed manning agencies to assist overseas Filipino workers affected by the airport outage last Sunday. This includes helping them explain to employers what happened in the country’s international airport.
DMW officials said there were around 3,000 OFWs whose flights got canceled, delayed, or diverted. Most were able to rebook their flights abroad, the department said.
Meanwhile, a legislative inquiry into the airport fiasco is scheduled this week.
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Eight unvaccinated Filipinos who flew in from China tested positive for COVID-19 last week after taking an antigen test upon their arrival at the airport. The Department of Health said the eight travelers have since been put under isolation, while 89 close contacts are also under observation.
Work and employment
- President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. has ordered the suspension of the PhilHealth rate hike to 4.5% from 4% to give Filipinos a bit of breathing room as commodity prices continue to soar. However, the agency said some of its programs – such as the outpatient benefit for mental health and therapeutic care for severe-acute malnutrition – will be put on hold.
- Online services of BPI were inaccessible for a day last week as BPI tried to resolve issues where some of their clients’ accounts were debited twice for their transactions over the holiday break. The bank was able to fix the glitch by the end of the day.
- The 8th Division of the National Labor Relations Commission upheld an earlier ruling that classified Foodpanda Philippines’ delivery riders as regular employees, considered a landmark decision as the country still needs to implement proper regulations to protect its gig workers.
Politics and the nation
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While there have been calls for the government to implement “proactive policies” for arrivals from China, Marcos Jr. said the Philippines would take a “watch and wait” strategy on the neighboring country’s COVID-19 situation.
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Over 80,000 Catholics and Black Nazarene devotees participated in a "walk of faith", which is a modified version of the Traslacion for the COVID-19 pandemic on Saturday. The procession was held on the eve of the Feast of the Black Nazarene.
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Talks of military destabilization spurred over the weekend after a fake memorandum from the Philippine National Police circulated online, just as Gen. Andres Centino was reappointed as the chief of the Armed Forces of the Philippines. Both the PNP and the Armed Forces of the Philippines were quick to disown the memo, saying "everything is normal."
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Interior Secretary Benhur Abalos has called on top police officers to voluntarily resign in a bid to clean up the PNP’s ranks of the illegal drug trade, which the chief executive himself admitted that his administration has been “planning this for a while” as its approach to the “war on drugs” of the Duterte administration.
However, the Commission on Human Rights raised that holding perpetrators accountable for possible human rights violations should still be part of the government’s program.
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A senator wants to include the country's constitution as part of the curriculum of junior and senior high school students to equip the youth with the ability to form deeper analyses and encourage involvement in public issues.
You can view last week’s rundown here or sign up for the newsletter here.
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