Abrigo: Save the OFWs

Abrigo: Save the OFWs

FOR a very important business in the capital town of Sultan Kudarat last month, I traveled from Davao traversing the quake ranges of Makilala to Tacurong.

Going home on the same day, I passed through the same route with the same bus on their second way. I was so fortunate to sit at the front on the left row intended for the PWDs and senior citizens though am not.

My seatmate and four other pretty women at late 30s seated close to me, overheard discussing familiarity on how to reach the office address of their recruiter for a work abroad.

Being familiar to all nooks and corners of Davao City, I was obliged to offer them some directions as gesture that Dabawenyos are well-disposed.

Their bits and bobs in fair complexion explicitly told me they are not suited to work abroad as domestic helpers. Their bodily figures verbalized they have children and husbands left in their respective domicile.

They chose to go abroad mindless of negativity. Some who were ahead of them eat only once a day, some work like restless robots and suffered sleep deprivation, others underwent all sorts of abuses and even ill-fated like Flor Contempacion, Sarah Balabagan, Mary Jane Veloso and the rest who were fallen in quest for poverty alleviation.

The most gruesome murder of a Pinay OFW happened two years ago in Kuwait when the employer’s freezer turned morgue of Joanna Demafelis’ carcass. And while the scar of tension between the Philippine and Kuwaiti governments is still fresh, another OFW returned home black and blue from Kuwait.

The new victim Jeanelyn Villavende from Norala town in North Cotabato, is just like some of us. She dreamed to redeem the mortgaged farmland; build a decent cottage to shield their bodies from elements; and to send her younger sister to college. But all drives and determinations turned futile in the hands of barbarous and savage employers.

Pre-Departure Orientation Seminar (PDOS) before sending human resource abroad is not enough to thwart abuses. Doling-out financial assistance to the bereaved family even if it is personally delivered by a cabinet secretary cannot console. Suspending the recruitment agency is but superficial to administer justice.

The government should impose total ban from sending OFWs and must institute a well-structured system to support the farmers, the sector where most of the OFW-victims come from.

Had this component of the society been given preferential concern to enjoy good price of their abundant harvest, they could have live to the fulfillment with their family, dignified.

How many lifeless Pinays be sent home shall we count before this present administration takes a larger leap to take care of the dying farmers?

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