Overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) can now be deployed to at least 18 countries that were previously declared “unsafe” destinations for OFWs.

According to the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA) Administrator Hans Cacdac, the POEA governing board finally approved a resolution that would allow deployment of OFWs to 31 more countries. 

Cacdac said, “The POEA governing board passed a resolution allowing deployment of OFWs to 31 more countries that were declared compliant by the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA).”

He said that after careful review, the DFA has reversed previous “unsafe” assessment and declared as fully compliant the 18 countries:

1. Antigua and Barbuda,
2. Barbados,
3. Cambodia,
4. Cayman Islands,
5. Croatia,
6. Dominica,
7. India,
8. Nauru,
9. Pakistan,
10. St. Kitts and Nevis,
11. St. Lucia,
12. St. Vincent and the Grenadines,
13. Sudan,
14. Tonga,
15. Turks and Caicos,
16. Tuvalu,
17. US Virgin Islands,
18. Vanuatu

Other compliant countries include Andorra, Bulgaria, Djibouti, Egypt, El Salvador, Ethiopia, Georgia, Honduras, Moldova, Nicaragua, Samoa, Singapore, and Thailand.

With the inclusion of the 31, a total of 155 countries are now considered compliant and therefore allowed to continue hiring Filipino workers, Cacdac said.

However, a deployment ban remains in Iraq, Lebanon, Jordan, Afghanistan and Nigeria, he added.