MANILA – A non-government organization has urged the Department of Foreign Affairs to conduct an inventory of all cases involving overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) and set more frequent visits to monitor their situation and ensure their protection.
In particular, the Blas F. Ople Center proposed the posting of legal attaches to the Philippine embassy in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, where there is a high number of runaways and and OFWs who have complained of abuses from their employers.
Susan Ople, a former undersecretary at the Department of Labor and Employment and head of the center, cited the case of Jonathan Bigas who was said to have exceeded his jail term of one year but remains incarcerated in Saudi Arabia on a drug-related case.
Ople noted that the ration of embassy personnel to OFWs in Saudi Arabia is one for every 30,000 OFWs.
In this light, the designation of specialized attaches will help a lot in serving the needs and protecting the rights of the Filipinos deployed in that oil-rich kingdom which hosts the biggest number of OFWs, Ople pointed out.
She added another OFW, Jason Pineda, 36, wrote the center to seek legal assistance because he has been in jail for one year and nine months on a drug-related complaint in Saudi Arabia without a court ruling or sentence on his case.
Pineda said he was arrested when a package sent from the Philippines in his name was found to contain illegal drugs, Ople said. She also said Pineda was not engaged in the sale or use of illegal drugs.
Ople is the daughter of the late Philippine senator and statesman Blas Ople as well as secretary of the Department of Foreign Affairs after which the center was named.
The late senator, also a former journalist, is acknowledged as the “brains” behind the deployment of Filipinos abroad, which was launched during the martial law regime of the late Philippine strongman Ferdinand Marcos.
Estimates are that there are now about nine million OFWs deployed mostly in the Middle East, especially Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, US and North America, the United Kingdom and Italy in Europe as well as neighboring countries like Singapore, Malaysia, Japan, Hong Kong, Taiwan and South Korea.
According to Ople, the center’s main advocacy is to work for the rights and ensure the protection of the OFWs who are now in jail or have been accused of crimes which they did not commit.
In the case of Jonathan Bigas, Ople said she was assured by the foreign office that it is already working for his repatriation.
A major cause for the delay in the release of Bigas is the administrative procedure between the Saudi court and the governor’s office, according to Ople.
But, at the same time, she called for a more thorough investigation on the reasons why OFWs, like Bigas, are made to serve their sentences twice as she asked: “How many more are suffering the same fate in the detention centers not just in Saudi Arabia but around the world?”
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