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OFWs cry foul

Home from Saudi

BAGUIO CITY ( May 19) — Already home after being held for four months, the last batch of the overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) from the Cordillera who earlier staged a strike against their employer in Saudi Arabia cry foul over their Arabian experience but tell of a collective struggle that gained their freedom.

Mariel Taguba, one of the returnees, claimed that their Manila-based agency was forced to pay P1,580,000 to Annasban group of companies as payment for the unfinished contract the OFWs and as a condition by the employing company to release the remaining six.

Six of the 38 Cordillera OFWs employed by Annasban arrived on May 9 after various efforts led to their release.

Contract substitution

Taguba explains that the contracts they had signed with their Manila-recruitment agency were substituted by their employer upon arrival in Saudi Arabia.

They were forced to sign the substituted contracts written in Arabic and never translated to them, Taguba explained. Their horrible experiences began after the forced signing.

The original contract was for the OFWs to work as janitress, instead they worked as caregivers in a hospital, where they had suffered physical assault from the patients Taguba recalls. She told the media that they experienced different forms of rights violations which ranged from unpaid or delayed salaries or too many deductions from the paycheck.

Their recruitment agency promised them free food, comfortable accommodations, overtime pay, free medical and dental expenses and one non-working day in a week but these promises were never realized, adds Taguba.

In January this year, these OFWs stopped working afterwhich their employer detained them in the rooftop and the first floor of their (employer) building. For a week, they experienced no food but later some kababayan workers donated food upon learning their situations. “May mga tiyempo na tiniis naming kanin ang mga tira-tirang pagkain na para kaming mga baboy (There were times that we ate leftover foods like we were pigs),” she added.

From the 38 workers, 22 came from the Cordillera. They shared that they (OFWs) and their families here in the region and the Migrante lobbied local officials and agencies until the OWWA and the DFA moved to address their plights.

Their families recalled that Migrante lobbied with Sen. Jamby Madrigal early this year in the latter’s visit in this city. Sen. Madrigal wrote the Overseas Workers Welafre Administration (OWWA) and the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) which led to the release of eight in the first batch

Meanwhile, Migrante Metro-Baguio chairperson Flora Belinan urged the GMA administration to investigate and punished the recruitment agencies practice of substituting contract and other oppressive practices.

Belinan reiterated that it is the responsibility of the Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo government to look into the welfare of Filipino migrants, not only in Saudi Arabia but also in other foreign countries. # Johnny Fialen for NORDIS

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