Migrants’ family and kin protest on Migrant’s Day

BAGUIO CITY (Dec. 18) — Bong, not his real name, is now both mother and father to his three-year old son, after his wife, a dentist, left for the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia on June 2, 2005. His wife keeps on texting him that her employer changed the contract she signed in the airport, did not give her salaries as agreed upon, and gave her a job as an assistant to a hospital dentist.

Bong and Jun, are among protesting families and friends of Overseas Filipino Workers (OFWs) from the Cordillera who celebrated the UN-declared Migrants’ Day on December 18 with a lot of worries for their kin.

Both share a similar story. Jun, also left to care for a little child, said his wife is among those in Riyadh who are protesting against the unfair labor practices of Annasban group. Their wives are both exposed to violations in the working contract. They do not have decent living quarters, instead they live in a flat with no windows. Both women do not get free food no medical assistance nor dental services.

These are but some of the issues tackled by Migrante – Metro Baguio and other chapters worldwide during the International Migrants’ Day.

“We commit this day for the migrant workers and their families to learn about the plight of the OFWs,” Claire Daguio of Migrante-Metro Baguio said. “By doing so, we will enable the families and friends to understand and act on their situation,” Daguio added.

Filipinos are among the most oppressed migrants to this date, a Migrante statement said. Oftentimes, they are paid bottom wages for dirty, difficult and dangerous jobs abroad.

Like Bong’s and Jun’s wives, most OFW’s are forced into accepting jobs not mentioned in their original contract, some run away from abusive and exploitative employment and end up victims of another gory situation abroad, according to Migrante’s Flora Belinan.

Like Bong and Jun’s wives, OFW’s mostly child-bearing women, leave their children in the care of kin. In the Cordillera, where most OFW’s come from remote countryside, these families are even subjected to the government’s anti-insurgency operations, thus, they also suffer from militarization and other human rights abuses, according to Migrante.

Migrante traces the exodus of OFWs to the inability of the Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo administration to provide jobs to its growing population. “The only lasting solution to this problem of OFW phenomenon is for us to attain national independence and economic development. This is the only way that government could provide jobs to Filipinos and not to drag them out to work overseas,” the Migrante statement said.

Bong wants her wife out of the exploitative condition in KSA, as much as Jun prays that government act of the situation of OFWs worldwide. Bong has filed a complaint with the Overseas Workers’ Welfare Administration (OWWA) while Jun is awaiting a speedy repatriation for his wife and others in a Riyadh villa.

While several migrant women share the sentiment that they are not for sale as supermaids, back home, in the meantime, their families join local protesters in saying enough of government neglect, enough of GMA. # Lyn V. Ramo for NORDIS