MANILA – Stranded Filipino workers in Saudi Arabia have assailed the Philippine government’s failure to repatriate them despite their repeated appeals.
The workers, many of them victims of labor malpractice and abuses by their employers, said even the Philippine Overseas Labor Office-Overseas Workers Welfare Administration (POLO-OWWA) also failed to assist or help them.
The Filipino migrants’ rights group called Migrante-Middle East said it is being flooded with complaints from stranded workers from the lack of government support to failure of POLO-OWWA officials to attend to the plea of their suffering compatriots.
It said some POLO-OWWA officials allegedly told the stranded workers to buy and pay for their own tickets so they can return home.
“These complaints from the stranded OFWs prompted me to talk to the phone with Labor Attaché Rustico de la Fuente and I conveyed to him the OFWs concerns,” said John Leonard Monterona, Migrante-Middle East regional coordinator.
He quoted Dela Fuente as saying: “Policy has not changed. We do not ask stranded OFWs to shoulder their tickets.”
But two Filipino workers stranded in Riyadh told Monterona that they were told by POLO-OWWA to secure their own plane ticket if they wanted to go back to the Philippines.
Monterona said the workers – Lilia Domingo Andres, 41, a mother of two from Cagayan Valley; and Jerry Macatuggal Ambrocio, 40, from Cavite, were appealing for Migrante’s assistance. The two were among 130 stranded Filipinos who are now staying at the Philippine embassy-rented villa at Exit 8 in Riyadh.
Andres tagged Rosalie Florida, who is allegedly the keeper at Bahay Kalinga, as one of those who told her to buy her own ticket as the government does not provide free tickets to stranded workers in Saudi.
While Ambrocio claimed that OWWA welfare officer Orlando Nadora also told him to buy his own ticket.
Monterona said Philippine embassy officials should investigate these allegations. He called on OWWA and the Department of Labor and Employment, and the Senate and House committees on labor and OFWs affairs, to conduct a thorough investigation about the complaints of stranded Filipinos in Saudi. (Mindanao Examiner)
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