MANILA (Mindanao Examiner / Aug. 14, 2014) – Filipino workers in the Middle East have rejected any term extension for President Benigno Aquino and branded it as a desperate move to hang into power.
“We will certainly oppose President Aquino’s term extension either via Charter change or by declaring martial law if he is that desperate just to remain in office beyond his term limit,” said John Leonard Monterona, the Riyadh-based regional coordinator of Migrante-Middle East (M-ME).
Aquino’s term ends on 2016, but his allies led by Interior Secretary Mar Roxas are pushing lawmakers to amend the Constitution that would give the president another six years in office. But this early, citizens were enraged by the proposal and vowed to fight any attempt to prolong Aquino’s stay in office.
Monterona said Aquino has miserably failed to address woes of overseas Filipino workers. “Our opposition is grounded on a simple equation that if Aquino remains in office, the number of broken families, victims of forced migration, and OFWs abuses and maltreatment will increase directly proportional to the number of peddled OFWs now numbering to 4,800 daily leaving the country from 3,800 since he assumed presidency in 2010,” he said.
“Aquino is the number one exporter of cheap Filipino labor via the government’s lucrative labor exportation program. His government remains too dependent on billions of OFWs remittances that set a yearly record high of about 21-B US dollar last year,” Monterona added.
He said the Philippine economoy under Aquino remains “export-oriented, import-dependent” and “it is even worst now because OFWs are merely treated as commodity for export thus thousands of OFWs have been victims of abuses and maltreatment abroad.”
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