MIGRANT WATCH

Freed from Saudi Death Row, OFW Faces New Hitch with OWWA

When Philippine consulate officials refused help, Migrante International took up his case.  Migrante succeeded in having OFW Joselito “Lito” Alejo returned to the Philippines after spending six years on death row in a Saudi Arabia jail. Authorities mistook him for the killer of a Riyadh policeman. Now he’s into trouble again – OWWA is giving him the run-around in his effort to secure benefits for which he had paid for 20 years.

By Alexander Martin Remollino
Bulatlat.com

In the first four or so days since Joselito “Lito” Alejo returned to the Philippines, his sister Norma kept staring at him over breakfast. Norma could not quite believe her brother was now with the family.

Kaka Lito had been in prison for the past six years and three months in Saudi Arabia, where he had worked for the last 20 years. He was accused of killing an Arab policeman in Riyadh on July 29, 1997, and came very close to losing his head.

Eleven days after the incident, Arab police went to the place where he was staying, and looked for a “Joselito Lito.” When Kaka Lito said it was he even without knowing the surname of the person they were looking for, he was immediately slapped.

(It would turn out later that the person Arab police should have looked for was one Joselito “Lito” Lavares. Kaka Lito tells of having got information that Lavares was able to return to the Philippines by paying the Philippine embassy Php15,000 [US$272.72] “for immediate repatriation using travel documents.”)

Kaka Lito would languish in jail for six years and three months. He was brought to court after spending four years and 11 months in jail.

With the recent release of Kaka Lito and Jojo Esmero, who was also implicated in the killing of the Arab policeman, the number of Filipinos on death row in Saudi Arabia has gone down to 44 from 46. There are currently 1,500 Filipino workers stranded in Saudi Arabia.

Life in jail

For three days and two nights since he was picked up, Kaka Lito had no sleep and no food. “I was just tied and handcuffed,” Kaka Lito says. After that, he was brought to a bartolina, where he was able to snatch a fitful sleep.

It was a very short sleep, however, for he would soon have water poured on him. “I was very tired, I had neither slept nor eaten, and water would be poured on you,” he says. He felt heat in his eyes, and his vision blurred.

“But that was not the worst,” he says. “Everyday since I was incarcerated, they would pull me out of the bartolina and force me to admit to the crime. They would interrogate me, and they would torture me. They beat me up. I was usually placed in a vehicle with no plate number, where I was accompanied by policemen in civilian clothes. I would be brought to a desert-like place where they would force me to admit to the crime, and if I didn’t tell them who killed the man, they would put me on death row.” They even threatened he would not reach the execution stage, in which they behead convicted criminals—meaning he would be summarily executed before he could even be convicted.

In prison, he found work as a laundryman for the jail personnel. He also collected and disposed of their garbage and earned a pittance.

He was also tasked with bringing food to his fellow inmates. It was while doing this task, he says, that he frequently got into trouble with his fellow inmates. “They were very abusive,” he says of his Arab cellmates. Many times, he got angry and could not resist hitting them, in the process driving them to the clinic. (Kaka Lito is a big, muscular man who, it is said, is capable of taking on three men at the same time.) “You serve them and they shout at you, what do you do?”

Whenever he got into trouble, he would be brought to the bartolina. “I could accept suffering for getting into fights,” he says, “but for your fellow inmates to treat you that way, I cannot accept that.”

Relatives and friends had difficulty visiting him, since he had a so-called “No. 1” card, meaning he could not be visited. However, he could receive visits from a nephew and a friend whenever the guard on duty was a friend of his.

For seven months after he was picked up, Kaka Lito was in solitary confinement.

Government neglect

For six years, his sister Norma went to and from government offices. They did not receive any help from the government, she says. In fact, says Kaka Lito, embassy officials even refused to believe that he was innocent.

Because of this, he says, he could not resist raising his voice whenever he has to talk with government people.

Only Migrante International and its newly founded party-list group Migrante Sectoral Party helped him through his ordeal. His sister Norma approached Migrante International in 1998.

In 2000, Migrante International started an international campaign on his case. The group circulated a petition signed not only by overseas Filipino workers, but also by other nationalities. Through public pressure, the migrants’group was able to reduce his punishment, from execution to 70 lashes—and was able to secure his release.

Migrante continues to help Kaka Lito, particularly in the suit he plans to file before international human rights bodies against the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

Kaka Lito is currently applying for livelihood assistance with the Overseas Workers Welfare Administration (OWWA). But he is having trouble availing of benefits due him as one who has made payments to OWWA funds for the last 20 years. Citing OWWA administrator Virgilio Angelo, he says that the agency still has to check whether his stay in Saudi Arabia was documented.

Despite the ordeal he went through, Kaka Lito still plans to go back to Saudi Arabia. Life is difficult for him in the Philippines, he says, because he has no job here. Bulatlat.com

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