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Volume III,  Number 47              January 4 - 10, 2004            Quezon City, Philippines


 





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2003: A Tough Year for OFWs and Their Families 

Jose Alejo was one of many unfortunate migrant workers who suffered under the Philippine government’s abandonment of OFWs. He returned home this year, jobless, after seven years in a Saudi jail and 70 lashes.  His case illustrates the tough year overseas Filipino workers and their families had under the Macapagal-Arroyo government.

BY AUBREY SC MAKILAN
Bulatlat.com

An OFW’s lament

Disappointed. This was Joselito Alejo’s reaction on the government’s actions on his case.

Alejo was charged with murder in 1997 in Saudi Arabia because he had the misfortune of having the same name as the real perpetrator.

He said he was interrogated and tortured by Saudi policemen using a baseball bat, ray shark’s tail or anything that the police could lay their hands on. His case was only brought to Saudi Arabia’s high court in June 2002 or five years after he was arrested. And after he was finally released in June 2003, he was again invited by a Saudi lower court in June 2003 for further investigation.

When the Saudi court decided to impose 350 lashes, the Philippine embassy appealed for clemency. Alejo at first did not want to appeal because it meant conviction. He later acceded in order to get back to the Philippines earlier.

Macapagal-Arroyo’s promise to prioritize him for another job opportunity abroad, along with financial assistance, is yet to come. The P10,000 that Overseas Workers Welfare Administration (OWWA) administrator Virgilio Angelo “donated”  was the fruit of Alejo’s effort.

This experience makes Alejo doubt the government’s proclamation of OFWs as “new heroes.” He said that migrant workers are only considered heroes if they are still able to remit dollars but abandoned when charged with criminal cases, like what happened to him who had worked abroad since 1980 before being arrested.

He was, however, very thankful to Migrante International for campaigning for his release and taking on the responsibility that the government failed to carry out.

Sexual abuse and maltreatment

Alejo is not the only victim of, as Migrante Sectoral Party (MSP) describes it, “OWWA’s criminal neglect of duty.”

Grace, not her real name, is an Ifugao reportedly abducted and raped by Emirati Khalifa Hassan Khalifa on May 16, 2003. After 10 days in the hospital, she was sentenced by the Dubai Misdemeanor Court for intoxication and adultery charges to two months imprisonment and deportation. Khalifa on the other hand was freed on bail on Sept. 11. Since all government programs for the OFWs have been indefinitely suspended since August last year reportedly for restructuring, it was again Migrante which took care of her case.

Migrante also revealed that the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) did not even inform the United Arab Emirates (UAE) officials of the case or of its intent to actively pursue justice for Grace in a dialogue with UAE Embassy Counsellor Sharif Altayeb in Makati City.

Meanwhile, last November, the late Foreign Affairs Secretary Blas Ople promoted Teresita Mendiola from being Philippine Consul in Israel to Consul General in Guam despite complaints of physical assault by her own Filipina maid against her.

Regilyn Duca, who was Mendiola’s all-around maid and cook for a miserable P8,200 (roughly US$150) monthly salary, was enslaved, starved ― she had to compete with the family pets for the table scraps ― and beaten. Duca however has never gotten hold of her money because according to Mendiola, “it is being held to pay for her airfare.”
 
On the other hand, racism has led to abuse of OFWs, particularly in the United States (U.S.) where many Filipinos are accused of being absconders or potential terrorists. There have been 1, 458 Filipinos arrested and deported from the U.S. since the 9/11 attacks.

Many of them were beaten, interrogated and paraded at the airport with their arms handcuffed and their feet chained. They were chained even when eating and using the toilet. The planes carrying the deported Filipinos would usually land at the airport in Clark, Angeles City instead at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA) to hide the maltreatment to the public. The latest was on Dec. 12, which unloaded 108 deportees. The deportation was reportedly related to the anti-terrorism campaign of the U.S.

Migrante admitted that some of those deported have past cases of sexual offense, robbery and homicide but it pointed out that  Americans charged with similar offenses are not treated the way Asians, including Filipinos, are treated when arrested.

Alarming statistics

Statistics confirm Alejo’s claim of government neglect and abandonment.

Citing DFA records, Migrante said there are more than 2,500 OFWs facing criminal charges as of October 2003, with at least 10 men and four women on death row in Saudi Arabia.

There are likewise 1,502 cases of missing, imprisoned, raped and maltreated OFWs. The number of such cases averages 17 a day. In the first quarter of 2003 alone, 227 deaths of OFWs were monitored by Migrante.

Migrante has been helping in the repatriation of migrant workers, including the remains of those who died, aside from attending to cases of contract substitutions and violations. The group has documented 10 “mysterious OFW deaths,” mostly women, under President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo’s watch.

Meanwhile, Migrante has also recorded intensified crackdowns on Filipinos in Taiwan, South Korea and Israel, particularly undocumented migrant workers.

With at least 17, 000 Filipinos affected by the South Korean government crackdown, about 2,000 were already arrested before 2003 ended.

Ironically, the Philippine government even supported the Employment Permit System or Korean 6967 that co-exists with the Industrial Trainee System which “prevents migrants from becoming permanent workers with adequate wages and benefits.”

John Monterona, Migrante Sectoral party spokesperson and vice chairperson, thus accused the government of being “a party to the enactment of a law that will impose stricter penalties and worsen migrant workers’ conditions in the workplaces.”

In Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, there are 1,500 Filipino workers who have been stranded from three months to three years. Most of them ran away from abusive employers who in turn have withheld their travel documents including passports.

On Dec. 15, 16 OFWs staged a hunger striker to protest the government’s non-action on their request for repatriation despite several dialogs with Philippine Embassy officials. Instead of supporting them, the officials reportedly called the Saudi police on Dec. 21 to have the strikers dispersed to give way to the Embassy’s Christmas party.

On the other hand, as of Jan. 17, 2003, OWWA records show that there are only 3.7 million documented OFWs in 182 nations. Migrante reports otherwise: There are 8.2 million Filipinos abroad, including immigrants and undocumented migrant workers.

Despite all these alarming statistics, Migrante said that the government still wants them to “stay abroad.”

Corruption

Another issue that has plagued the OFWs is corruption. Migrante charged that the Philippine government has not only abandoned the OFWs but also steals their money.

Migrant organizations were reportedly not consulted when the president issued Executive Order 182, which allowed the transfer of the OFWs’ P4 billion Medicare Fund to the Philippine Health Insurance Corporation (PhilHealth). The funds came from the P900 (roughly $16.5) that each OFW pays yearly for Medicare, apart from the US$25 OWWA contribution.

OWWA reported that P10 million of the funds have been lost due to fake claimants. MSP chairperson Connie Bragas-Regalado questioned how this could happen since every claimant is approved by no less than the OWWA administrator himself. The OWWA, however, could not present evidence. The migrant group is looking into the possibility of filing graft cases.

Meanwhile, OWWA released US$293,500 to Ambassador Roy Cimatu for a massive evacuation in the Middle East during the U.S.-Iraq war in April 2003. Migrante found in early September however that no evacuation happened. Even OWWA administrator Angelo admitted that OWWA did not spend a single centavo for the evacuation. Migrante said OWWA could not present an audit report regarding the disbursement.

Migrante also reported there are projects charged to OFW funds yet not intended for migrant workers.

The funds for OWWA’s livelihood assistance program have been transferred to the National Livelihood Service Fund (NLSF), which is under the Office of the President. With this transfer, the president could now release the funds even for non-OFW projects.

Meanwhile, the OFWs and their dependents have not been receiving assistance since Malacañang ordered the indefinite suspension of all welfare programs for OFWs. These include health services, financial assistance, livelihood and repatriation assistance and reintegration assistance.

Ironically, all OWWA programs, even employees’ salaries, are funded by migrants’ contributions and nothing comes from government.

In the 2002 OWWA report, a P6 billion fund balance was recorded. P562 million of these was released for direct services to OFWs in 2003; the rest, or roughly 90 percent of the P6 billion, went to OWWA’s investment projects instead of services for the migrant workers and their families.

E-card deception

Another anomaly was the implementation of the electronic card (E-card), which has been declared to be free of charge by no less than the president.

Migrante-Hong Kong reported that the US$25 contribution is being used as a precondition for the E-card application in Hong Kong since July, when in fact the P5 million E-card production cost was actually charged to OWWA.

On Oct. 12, OWWA personnel at the Philippine Consulate in Hong Kong issued forms to some 200 E-card applicants without telling them that these were actually for the HK$200 (US$25) OWWA contribution which the Philippine government has been trying to implement.

The alleged deception forced the applicants to tear up their forms in protest and demand their free E-cards. The Philippine Consulate called on the HK police to intervene and later imposed a ban on all protests in the consulate.

Anti-migrant policies

Migrant organizations have also scored the “Omnibus Policies of the OWWA,” or Board Resolution No. 038, which was passed on Sept. 19 last year. They said it gave extensive and expansive powers to the Board of Trustees of OWWA who are all Palace appointees.

Aside from alleged possible manipulation of funds and full control over OWWA transactions, the Omnibus Policies will make the already inaccessible programs even more difficult to avail of.

Monterona told Bulatlat.com that the 1995 Magna Carta for OFWs is actually another burden for them. It phased out the regulatory functions of Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA) and deregulated the deployment of Filipinos abroad by giving the responsibility to recruitment agencies. Migrante has called for the scrapping of the magna carta since its passage.

No more gimmick

Migrante said the OFW “industry” is the only earning “industry” of the country – “bigger than the export of pineapples, assembled semi-conductors, timber products, and semi-manufactured foods” in terms of dollars earned.

Migrante also said that the OFW remittances are not limited to US$7 billion annually, as stated by the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP), but actually averages US$12 billion yearly. The group said that BSP should include in its computations remittances through “paabot” (door-to-door delivery by fellow migrant workers), since many OFWs prefer this method than the more expensive bank transactions.

Regalado criticized the government’s annual Christmas scheme, “Pamaskong Handog,” as “preposterous.” This year’s edition consists of festivities at the OWWA office and the international airport and awarding of prizes for selected OFWs. Regalado said they are intended to cover up all the scams that take advantage of the OFWs and sought to project Macapagal-Arroyo as pro-migrant.

Regalado said it was part of Macapagal-Arroyo’s early political campaign in a “desperate attempt to get the migrant votes and their families.” Even the president’s posters displayed at the NAIA was charged to the OWWA. “All throughout the year, OFWs are abandoned,” Regalado said, “then suddenly government holds gimmicks which are charged to us.”

Migrante said there are about 360,000 registered absentee voters, exclusive of their family members in the country.

Regalado called on the government to provide jobs in the country rather than exporting workers and rather than politicking. She said that in the end migrant workers still want to go home and be with their families. Bulatlat.com

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