Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte says a temporary ban on Filipinos going to work in Kuwait is now permanent. The ban was initially imposed following the murder of a Filipina maid whose body was discovered earlier this year. Our correspondent Barnaby Lo has more.  

BARNABY LO DAVAO CITY The diplomatic rift between the Philippines and Kuwait has sunk deeper into crisis as Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte now wants a permanent ban on labor deployment to the Middle Eastern country. It was supposed to be a temporary ban that started in February as the two countries worked out an agreement for better protection of Filipino workers in Kuwait, but now not only will the Philippine government not allow new deployments to Kuwait, President Duterte wants some 260,000 Filipinos working there to come home. In a speech upon arriving here in Davao from Singapore on Sunday evening, he said, I guess jokingly, that he'll rob a central bank if he has to to be able to get them home.

RODRIGO DUTERTE PHILIPPINE PRESIDENT "I would like to (appeal to) your patriotism, come home. The economy is doing good and we are short of our workers."

BARNABY LO DAVAO CITY "Now it all started with the discovery of the body of a Filipina in a freezer, who turned out to be dead for two years already. That prompted the labor deployment ban and negotiations for a labor pact. But video of Filipino domestic workers being rescued by Philippine embassy personnel - which is what you're seeing now - surfaced online last week. The rescue operation was apparently done without coordination with Kuwaiti police. This angered the Kuwaiti government and resulted in the expulsion of the Philippine ambassador and arrest orders against Filipino diplomats. Now what about the labor pact? That of course is now dead in the water. Barnaby Lo, CGTN, Davao City in the Southern Philippines."