THE Philippine Overseas Employment Administration has issued a resolution allowing the re-deployment of returning overseas Filipino workers to Yemen.     Newly-hired workers however are still banned from going to Yemen.

Labor Secretary Rosalinda Dimapilis-Baldoz announced that the POEA Governing Board has issued Governing Board Resolution No. 2 series of 2012 allowing the re-deployment of overseas Filipino workers who have come home to the Philippines to return to their work in Yemen.

“The POEA Governing Board has issued the resolution after the Office of the President approved the recommendation of the Department of Foreign Affairs lowering the Alert Level in Yemen from Alert Level 4 in Sana’a and Alert Level 3 for the rest of Yemen to Alert Level 2,” Baldoz said.

“The recommendation was based on the improved political and security situation in the country and in response to the clamor of our OFWs who have returned but would like to go back ton Yemen to work. However, the resumption of the deployment does not cover newly-hired workers as the deployment ban for them remains,” she added.

POEA Administrator Hans Leo J. Cacdac, Governing Board Vice Chairman and Leonardo de Ocampo and Guillermina Gabor, members, also signed the resolution.

The POEA deferred the processing and deployment of all OFWs to Yemen (including Libya and Bahrain) on  February 22, 2011 in view of the unstable political and security conditions obtaining in those countries then.

On April 6, 2011, the POEA allowed the processing and deployment of vacationing workers to Yemen, subject to certain requirements, when the DFA lowered the Alert Level for that country from Alert Level 3 to Alert Level 2.

On 25 May 2011, the POEA again banned the deployment ban of all OFWs to Yemen after the DFA raised Yemen’s Alert Level to Alert Level 3.

The latest recommendation of the DFA was issued on January 9, 2012.