Bulatlat

No doubt, the stranded overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) recently deported back to the Philippines are rushing to be with their families. But before getting home, they have called on Philippine officials to act on their problems.

BY AUBREY SC MAKILAN
MIGRANT WATCH
Bulatlat
Vol. VIII, No. 11, April 20-26, 2008

No doubt, the stranded overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) recently deported back to the Philippines from Saudi Arabia are rushing to be with their families.

But before getting home, they have called on Philippine officials to act on their problems.

Deported Armando Navarro and Ricardo Abad urged the Philippine government to replace all Philippine officials assigned in Saudi Arabia.

“Palitan n’yo na lahat ng nakaupo mula sa ibaba hanggang sa itaas” (Replace all officials there from bottom to top), said Navarro. “Imbes na sila ang makatulong sa amin, sila pa nagpapahirap sa amin” (Instead of helping us, they have caused us hardships.)

Navarro is willing to stay a little longer at the Migrante office just to wait for his fellow OFWs, even if that means it would delay his reunion with his family in Palawan.

“Nagpaplano nga kami ng reunion pag nakabalik na kami dito” (We are planning to hold a reunion once we all get back home), he said. “Y’ung inumpisahang laban (sa Saudi), itutuloy namin dito. Parang nawalan na kami ng takot sa nangyari sa amin.” (We’ll continue here the fight we started in Saudi. It seems we’ve become unafraid because of what happened.)

Unfortunately, one of them will no longer be reunited with his friends and his family.

Navarro identified the fatality as Ryan Castillo, an OFW from Batangas City. He said that while in Riyadh deportation, he received a phone call from a fellow OFW at the Jeddah deportation informing them that Castillo contracted a disease inside the prison cell where he was brought by Saudi immigration authorities, and later succumbed to a heart attack.

Philippine Consul General Ezzedin Tago confirmed that an OFW died at the Jeddah Deportation Center on April 6 and admitted that the OFW was unaccounted for as he was not endorsed for deportation.

Castillo reportedly posed as a pilgrim who had lost his identification and turned himself in to expedite his deportation.
 
Tago said that the Philippine Consulate had not endorsed the man who died. Endorsement by the Philippine government is required for Filipinos before they can be held for deportation. This process is aimed at weeding out criminals seeking an easy way to flee the country incognito, as well as workers who walked away from their jobs and want to avoid the more complicated process of seeking clearance from their employers on a final-exit visa.

Meanwhile, Migrante International, an alliance of organizations composed of OFWs and their families, held the Arroyo administration, which includes Philippine officials in Saudi Arabia, responsible for this death.

“This tragically concretizes the criminal neglect of RP posts in the Kingdom,” said Maita Santiago, Migrante International secretary-general.
 
Migrante International organized a press conference dubbed as “Lugawan” for the stranded OFWs Arman Navarro and Ricardo Abad, and families of OFWs who are still stranded in Saudi Arabia. “Lugawan” (porridge) symbolized the country's economic hardship because of rising food prices and high unemployment that the stranded OFWs still have to endure when they return home.

Aside from the death, the two OFWs also shared other cases of deplorable conditions they and fellow OFWs experienced in the deportation centers. They also recounted how two pregnant Filipino women were unable to join the trip home because they gave birth inside the deportation center just days before their scheduled flight; how another Filipino woman vomited blood; and how another OFW had a stroke while imprisoned.
 
“How many more OFWs must die or fall ill before immediate measures are taken to ensure such tragedies are not repeated?” Santiago said.

“The death of this OFW indeed raises many questions. If it's true that he was already ill before being imprisoned, he should have been brought to a hospital and not a deportation center. His death and testimonies by the other OFWs also belie claims by RP posts that they are 'closely monitoring' the situation of the OFWs imprisoned and providing them necessary medicine and other items.”

The Migrante leader added that hundreds more stranded OFWs still await repatriation from Saudi Arabia , the United Arab Emirates, Jordan, Kuwait, Singapore and elsewhere. Migrante-Saudi Arabia estimates there may be around 500 stranded OFWs still in deportation centers while Migrante International's Rights and Welfare Assistance Program case files show 200 women OFWs stranded in Jordan; approximately 200 women OFWs stranded in the RP shelter in Kuwait; and a number of others stranded in the UAE and Singapore.
 
“While the repatriation of this initial batch of OFWs is a victory of the OFWs themselves, their families and Migrante's campaign for their repatriation - the campaign to bring home the stranded OFWs will continue given the hundreds of others still left behind,” said Santiago.

The OFW deportees, Navarro and Abad also called for the recall and replacement of all Philippine officials in Saudi, from the rank-and-file to the higher ups, noting that “they are not of help to the OFWs in distress” but more of “added burden.”

“At the same time, we will intensify calls for Gloria's ouster given her growing list of injustices and 'crimes' against migrants and the Filipino people,” said Santiago. Bulatlat