Tuesday, October 07, 2008 Law to protect undocumented Filipinos sought By Bong Garcia
OVERSEAS Workers Welfare Administration (Owwa) officer Hassan Jumdain has requested for the passage of a law that would give ample assistance and protection to undocumented Filipinos overseas.
Jumdain said he made the request to Gabriela party-list Representative Luzviminda Ilagan, who visited Zamboanga City Friday for a fact-finding mission on Sabah deportees.
Ilagan was accompanied by Migrante International chairperson Connie Bragas-Regalado and Arleen Alonzo of the Association for the Rights of Children in Southeast Asia.
Jumdain said that at present, the assistance given by the concerned government agencies to undocumented Filipinos overseas are only based on the existing administrative order of concerned government agencies.
He said there should be a law so that the affected groups or individuals will be given ample assistance and protection.
He said the law should not only be applicable to undocumented Filipinos in Sabah, Malaysia but those in other countries as well.
Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) Regional Director Zenaida Arevalo meantime said there were already 9,200 Filipinos deported from Malaysia from January to September this year.
Arevalo said there is an average of 10,000 undocumented Filipinos who are being deported annually by the Malaysian government.
Ilagan and her companions have visited some of the deportees who are still housed at DSWD's center for displaced persons in the village of Talon-Talon, east of Zamboanga City.
