KUWAIT – Ambassador Roy Cimatu, special envoy to the Middle East, arrived here Aug. 7 to lead the investigation on the reported smuggling of Filipino workers to Iraq for the construct the US embassy there.

Philippine Ambassador to Kuwait Ricardo Endaya, labor attach__ Leopoldo de Jesus and Charge d’ Affaires to Iraq Wilfredo Cuyugan, have been scheduled to meet with US officials to discuss the issue.

“Hopefully we will be able to finish our mission at the earliest possible time... and institute some corrective measures on our policy and our procedures to implement the deployment ban to Iraq," Cimatu said. Cimatu was also scheduled to talk to officials of Kuwait-based First Kuwaiti General Trading and Contracting Co., the firm allegedly involved in forcibly taking Filipinos to Iraq.

First Kuwaiti has admitted that it already sent a total of 867 overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) to Iraq despite the existing ban but the company denied that they were forcibly taken. Cimatu said that he will also appeal to Kuwaiti and Jordanian officials to help implement the Philippne government’s travel ban to Iraq.

The probe was spurred by the expose of Rory James Mayberry, a former employe of Kuwait firm who told a US House committee late last month that he witnessed the forced kidnapping of Filipino workers to work in Iraq. Mayberry said he was ordered by First Kuwaiti to escort 51 Filipino nationals from Kuwait City. “The Philippine government believes that there are only 9,000 to 10,000 Filipinos in Iraq... There’s a lot more than that in Iraq," Mayberry added.

It took an investigation by the US House oversight committee last month to prompt Philippine officials to look into the issue of Filipino workers working in Iraq despite the ban on deployment to that war-torn country. Two Americans who testified before the House committee chaired by Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA) detailed how the Filipino workers were led to believe they would be working in Kuwait but were actually “kidnapped”, abused and forced to work in the construction of the US embassy in Baghdad.

The State Department and the Kuwait-based contractor denied that abuses had been committed against the Filipino and other Asian workers in the embassy construction.

Jon Owens and Rory J. Mayberry, both American citizens, who worked for the Kuwaiti firm as foremen in the construction of the embassy building in Baghdad. This does not include the thousands of other Filipinos and foreigners hired by scores of companies currently providing security and food services for American forces that strife-torn country.

The chairman, Rep. Henry A. Waxman, a Democrat, called it ‘’full bunker mentality’’ and said that for two weeks he was unable to get documents and cables he had requested. Some were delivered only Thursday in response to a subpoena, he said.

But the senior Republican, Rep. Thomas M. Davis III, said the hearing ‘’was based on unproven facts in media reports.’’ ‘’It is oversight by firing squad,’’ he said. In Manila earlier, Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita said the government might blacklist the Kuwait firm if reports that the company is sending OFWs to Iraq are true.

Esteban Conejos Jr., DFA undersecretary for migrant workers affairs, said he already ordered the Philippine embassy in Kuwait to send a note verbale to the foreign ministry of Kuwait to reiterate the ban on deployment of workers in Iraq.

Labor Secretary Arturo Brion said based on the POEA record seven local recruitment agencies were found to have been sending Filipino workers to the Kuwait-based company.

Brion said the license of one of the seven recruitment agencies was canceled two years ago. He said his department will also launch its own investigation to establish whether the reports are authentic and to find out if these agencies should be held accountable.

The Kuwaiti firm was awarded the $592-million contract for the construction of the US Embassy in the heavily fortified Green Zone in Baghdad.

“Conditions there were deplorable, beyond what even a working man should tolerate," Owens said in his testimony before the House committee on allegations of waste, fraud and abuse in the construction project.

As expected the State Department and other officials have all denied the charge of abuses. “Foreign workers were packed in trailers tight. There was insufficient equipment and basic needs- stuff like shoes and gloves. If a construction worker needed a new pair of shoes, he was told, “’No, do with what you have’ by First Kuwaiti managers," Owens said based on a transcript of the congressional proceedings. “The contract for these workers said they had to work 12 hours a day 7 days a week, with some time off on Friday for prayers," he said.

Rory J. Mayberry, also an American who worked as emergency medical technician at the embassy site under a subcontract, said First Kuwaiti managers asked him to escort 51 Filipinos through the Kuwait airport and onto a flight to Baghdad.

“I was given my flight information to Baghdad. At this time, First Kuwaiti managers asked me to escort 51 Filipino nationals to the Kuwaiti airport and make sure they got on the same flight that I was taking to Baghdad. Many of these Filipinos did not speak any English," he told US congressmen. “I wanted to help them make sure they got on their flight OK, just as my managers had asked. We were all employees of the same company after all.

But when we got to the Kuwait airport, I noticed that all of our tickets said we were going to Dubai. I asked why? The Kuwaiti manager told me that because Filipino passports do not allow Filipinos to fly to Iraq, they must be marked as going to Dubai," Mayberry said.

Howard J. Krongard, the State Department’s inspector general in charge of investigating the project, said that he conducted a “limited review” on the conditions of foreign laborers at the construction site in Baghdad and did not find reasons to substantiate the claims.

The Filipinos worked at the embassy construction site with laborers from India, Pakistan and Sierra Leone. Mayberry , who read Krongard’s report. “It’s not worth the paper it’s printed on. This is a cover-up. I’m glad that I have this opportunity to set the record straight," he told the committee. Mayberry said the workers were told they would be working in hotels in Dubai, not in Baghdad. According to him, the First Kuwaiti managers even instructed him specifically not to tell the Filipinos they were being taken to Baghdad. “As I found out later, these men thought they had signed up to work in Dubai hotels. One fellow I met told me in broken English that he was excited to start his new job as a telephone repair man. They had no idea they were being sent to do construction work on the US embassy," Mayberry said.

“Mr. Chairman, when the airplane took off and the captain announced that we were headed for Baghdad, all you-know-what broke lose on that airplane. People started shouting. It wasn’t until a security guy working for First Kuwaiti waved an MP-5 in the air that people settled down," he said, addressing Rep. Henry A. Waxman, chairman of the oversight committee.