MANILA -- Israel and the Philippines have moved closer to resolving their differences over Israeli regulation on the deployment of foreign caregivers.
"We're talking also about the caregivers because as you know we opened a new sector for Filipino workers in Israel which is the tourism sector but we have some," Ambassador Ilan Fluss told a media briefing on Thursday.
"We have challenges with the caregivers because Israel introduced some new regulations. The Israeli parliament passed a new regulation which led to the there were some challenges with the regulation in the Philippines regarding caregivers and I believe we got to a understanding between the 2 governments on how to solve this issue," Fluss explained.
Fluss said that they have met with Migrant Workers chief Susan Ople already.
"Last week I met the Department of Migrant Workers a few times including Sec. Ople, and now we're working on basically the principles are there now we just have to work on the between the technical teams just to finalize the details, " Fluss said.
Flus said the new Israeli regulation came into force recently.
"It was an Israeli regulation which was actually was discussed a long time but the regulation came into force 6 months ago which was about payment for the basket of services that the OFWs can get in Israel only. This is about the caregivers only," Fluss said.
Fluss noted there's a lot of appreciation for Filipino caregivers.
"We are very much interested in Filipino workers coming to Israel there's a lot of appreciation to the level that the Prime Minister always talks about the Filipino caregiver that took care of his mother," Fluss said.
Fluss told media there are about 30,000 Filipino caregivers in his country.
"In Israel the minimum wage if I'm not mistaken is about 1, 500 dollars. If they work overtime, if they work weekends, if they work holidays, they get extra payment. So end of the day in the bank account they get much more in the minimum wage," Fluss said.
Fluss also discussed the achievements of the recent visit of Foreign Minister Eli Cohen to the Philippines.
"For me the visit, it is a historical visit because when I look at it politically, and the political interaction between our 2 countries, it's the first visit of a minister since 1967 which I think sends a very strong message of a growing interest, it's a strong message of a growing interest for the engagement between our 2 countries and the relationship of our 2 countries," Fluss said.
Fluss said during the visit, both sides discussed Israel's interest in the modernization of the Armed Forces of the Philippines and its help in Philippine agriculture.