Little Notes

In solidarity with the different labor groups, former senator and the Secretary-General of the Trade Union Congress of the Philippines Ernesto “Boy” Herrera expressed full support to the senatorial bid of former labor undersecretary Susan “Toots” Ople.

In a message delivered by TUCP Spokesman Alex Aguilar at Ople’s launch, Herrera said the TUCP welcomes and supports the candidacy of the late Senator and Foreign Affairs Secretary Blas F. Ople’s youngest daughter.

“Every OFW owes Ka Blas a debt of gratitude for opening the doors to labor migration long before the word “globalization” became a buzz word of our times,” Herrera said.

“I am happy that his daughter, the one who always accompanied Ka Blas and aided him in his work and continued it long after he had passed away, is now prepared to rise to the challenge of national leadership, as a vanguard of labor and OFWs.”

“Her passion for helping OFWs is something that she undoubtedly inherited from her father,” Herrera said.

Overseas Filipino workers and organized labor who have found a common ally in the youngest daughter of the late Senator and Foreign Affairs Secretary Blas F. Ople are now mobilizing its ranks to promote the senatorial bid of Susan Ople.

The movement dubbed as “Maka-Manggagawa Movement” is chaired by OFW-turned-businessman Jun Aguilar, one of the founders of the Partido ng Pandaigdigang Pilipino or PPP. A former OFW who worked in Saudi Arabia for several years, Aguilar said that he has been using the Internet to reach out to fellow OFWs and Filipino community leaders abroad.

“This marks the first time that overseas workers and their dependents are working with organized labor and informal workers for a common cause: to get an Ople back in the Senate,” Aguilar said.

Members of MMM include UP Professor and former Dean Rene Ofreneo, Linda Manabat of the Philippine Transport and General Workers Organization, an affiliate of the Trade Union Congress of the Philippines, Dr. Ernita Santos, chair of the NCR Federation of OFW Family Circles, Boy Desierto of the Alliance of Independent Hotel and Restaurant Workers, Annie Geron as representative of public sector unions under PSLink, among other groups.

During the launch of the “Maka-Manggagawa Movement”, Ople received hugs and good wishes from the many victims helped by the Blas F. Ople Center, a non-government organization founded by the senatorial aspirant after her father died.

Bus drivers from Dubai who were duped by their licensed agencies came out in full force to express support for Ople during the latter’s declaration held at the UP SOLAIR Building in Diliman, Quezon City.

Ople vowed to work for tougher laws against illegal recruitment and human trafficking as well as reforms in OWWA and other institutions that help OFWs. She also expressed concern over the growing trend towards agency-hires or labor-only contracting practices that include even jobs deemed essential to a company’s core operations and services.

Ople Center urges GOCCs to help affected families; bats for one-stop shop on-site calamity loans assistance from GSIS, SSS, PhilHealth, Pag-Ibig and OWWA

Former labor undersecretary Susan Ople issued an appeal in behalf of workers’ and OFW families affected by typhoon “Ondoy” for onsite calamity loans processing and assistance by various social security agencies and the Overseas Workers’ Welfare Administration.

The founder of the Blas F. Ople Policy Center said that she has been receiving requests for relief items and any form of assistance from families of OFWs especially those still in flooded areas in Marikina City, Quezon City, Cainta, and some towns in Bulacan.

“We call on the GSIS, SSS, Pag-Ibig, Philhealth, and OWWA to immediately set up customer-friendly one-stop shops in areas most hit by the recent floods so that the members of these various agencies need only to proceed to one place to apply for appropriate assistance” Ople said, while stressing that these agencies must now demonstrate to their members their willingness and capacity to help sans red tape and onsite.

While most flood victims appreciate relief goods, it is also important to note that most of them have not been able to go to work since Saturday and perhaps till the rest of the week. “The breadwinners in affected families that belong to any one of these agencies would require cash assistance so that they can immediate repair their homes, provide food and medicines for the family, and rebuild their lives,” Ople noted.

A one-stop shop that would gather all of these agencies in areas most accessible to the calamity victims would be most welcome. Ople said mobile assistance clinics sponsored by these agencies would also be welcome.

“While ordinary Filipinos pool their money and donate their clothes to help flood victims, we would like to see the same kind of cooperation and concern from government corporations and pension as well as trust funds owned by workers in both the private and public sectors and OFWs,” the Ople Center stressed.

(The article below appeared in today’s Panorama Magazine and Tempo. For those who share my sentiments and have a Facebook account, please sign up and support our cause via the No to Text Tax! page. Thanks!)

The House committee on ways and means recently approved a measure imposing a five-centavo tax on every text message. The authors of this bill estimate that around P36 billion in new revenues will be raised with this single tax proposal. Telecommunications companies notably, SMART and Globe, are vigorously protesting this text tax which Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile said the Senate would block.
I certainly hope so! Consider this: three thousand Filipinos leave the country daily to work or travel abroad, and nearly all of them have mobile phones. Even a Filipino domestic helper bound for Hong Kong or Singapore or even in faraway Saudi Arabia would make sure that she has a mobile phone to use, while taking advantage of the marketing promos of telco companies for overseas Filipino workers. If you multiply an estimated 9 million overseas Filipinos by at least four family members or friends who are their textmate partners for life, you can just imagine how many lonely souls find solace in sending and receiving an SMS. Finance and economic managers would see this data and imagine a billion-peso windfall. As an OFW advocate, I look at text messaging more of a survival tool, especially when one is deployed to a company located in an isolated desert, or onboard a ship navigating through the Gulf of Aden.
Why must government add to the burdens of our OFWs and all ordinary consumers with a tax that would be ripped off their pockets anyway? Even if the proponents agree to insert a no pass-on provision, meaning the tax cannot be passed on to consumers, it inevitably will, if not as a direct tax than as a diminution of add-on services.
Authors of the bill assert that proceeds from this new tax measure will be used to modernize and revitalize our educational system, bringing computer laboratories to every school. Yeah, right. Haven’t we heard that all before? Why not do that now, with the EVAT collections? If they couldn’t do that when the VAT was first imposed and subsequently raised, why should we believe them now?
Earmarking a certain amount for a public program never seems to work in this country. Exhibit A: the AFP Modernization Program. Government sold its vast property at Fort Bonifacio with people’s consent because they promised that the revenues will be used to provide our soldiers with more planes, helicopters, and other modern equipment. Never happened, and given our growing budget deficit, it probably never will.

This House proposal to tax each and every text message we send diminishes our right to free expression as it intrudes in our personal space, with the introduction of a metering service to keep track of the length and geographic location of every SMS. Imagine a scenario wherein the more enraged a consumer is, the higher is his or her consumption of text credits.
Text messages are not sent out in a vacuum, but out of a necessity to clarify, express, console, berate, and even adore, as the need arises. For government to benefit out of a flurry of text messages between a distressed OFW and her family is like a mercenary waiting for his or her next hit. This is simply downright wrong.
Some of you may ask, how can government obtain a bigger slice out of the multi-billion profits of the telecom industry? Perhaps by improving the economy and our investment climate, we would have an expanded middle class able to consume more and pay for it without hurting. Perhaps, the new administration come 2010 will be so inspiring that tax evaders would change their ways and tax collectors would perform their duties to the hilt.
In the end, the imposition of new taxes is a matter of trust between the government and the governed. We all want to help our country. But sometimes government must step aside so that we are better able to help ourselves. A tax on text? Not now, when every centavo counts; not ever, if funds collected lead to unfulfilled promises, over and over and over again.

A letter to my father
By Susan V. Ople

Dearest Amang,

Not a day passes that I don’t think of you.

When I open the morning paper, I’d skim over news items and think, “How would you have reacted to this and that issue?” You see it’s not just you as my father that I miss, but you as a national leader as well.

But today, on Father’s Day, I miss having you as my father to talk and listen to. Every time I entered a room to consult you about something, I’d leave more enlightened and assured of what needs to be done.

Despite your busy schedule, I never ever heard you snap at your children: “Not now. I’m too busy!” Your patience was simply remarkable. Even today, I would always hear your former associates and staff say, “Si Ka Blas, kahit kailan di ko nakitang nagalit.” (“I never saw Ka Blas get mad.”) In the dog-eat-dog world of politics, you were never the one to harbor personal hatred.

When I was a little girl, you would entertain guests over coffee in our living room at the old house in Project 6. Most of the time, your guests were labor leaders, whose spouses also became close to Mommy. They would have breakfast with you at our round table, while a long line of people waited outside, each with a favor to ask.

I remember going up to you and handing over a puzzle of metal rings that I couldn’t piece together. It was a cheap brain-test puzzle to test one’s IQ. You accepted the metal pieces and without a beat, sorted it together while conversing with your friends. The instructions that came with the puzzle said that anyone who could piece it within minutes qualifies as a genius. You did it without even reading the instructions. That incident, more than anything I heard people say about you during my childhood – that incident with the puzzle assured me that you were indeed an extraordinary man.

I also remember when you took me on a helicopter ride to Davao. I think I was just 9 years old. You would point to mountains and say something that got drowned out by the noise. I didn’t care. I was looking out my window. I was flying high. And you were on the front seat, just as excited as I was.

Fast-forward to Harvard. 1999. It was my graduation. Despite your frail physical condition, you and Mommy stayed until the end of the ceremony, despite the sun and summer heat. After obtaining my master’s degree from Kennedy School, I was poised to flap my wings, and search the horizon for a new nest to roost. You zapped that idea outright. “I give you two weeks then you need to come home.” Gone was my plan to try out for internships at the World Bank or at the Foreign Affairs Digest. It meant putting my dream of writing a novel and having it published in America on hold.

I went home, was all the better for it, especially since my education continued but this time as one of your trusted assistants. Together with Mila, your longtime secretary, we sought to make life easier for you – sorting out your schedules, looking after technical details and reports, drafting press statements and minor speeches, making sure all kinds of obligations (to constituents, Bulacan leaders, and of course, the family) were met.

When you accepted the President’s offer to serve as Secretary of Foreign Affairs, I knew it was in fulfillment of a long-time dream. Some people scoffed that you were too old for the job. Yet, you showed up at the Department of Foreign Affairs, walking slowly but every purposive step prompted by the zeal to make a difference.

I remember how thoughtful your questions were, when the senior staff went over to brief you about a forthcoming diplomatic engagement. You were respectful towards the staff, was accommodating when their answers left much to be desired, and yet quite specific as to what you wanted them to do. You weren’t just their boss, you were also their teacher.

I miss that too. The clarity that comes when you think things through, and consult matters with trusted and just as equally competent friends – it is that kind of clarity that makes your writings illuminating, relevant, and memorable even to this very day. It is a gift that eludes many. Because clarity is all about making tough choices, omitting noise so that the melody of a fine idea is heard. You were never petty or nonchalant about making such choices. Statesmanship was a natural attribute because you had no other agenda but to serve your country.

In the end, when you were gasping for breath inside the plane bound for Bahrain, I wasn’t there to hold your hand, to keep you steady, to help you slip through life perhaps in a more comfortable and dignified fashion. And so, I write to you now on Father’s Day, to say thank you. You have been a wonderful father and an excellent mentor, not just to me, but also to hundreds and thousands more whom you met in your lifetime.

I love you, Amang. Happy Father’s Day!

The US State Department has released its annual report on human trafficking and guess what? Our country is listed under Tier 2 and is now on the watch list. Previously, we were a Tier 2 country, but not in danger of falling further behind in global efforts to curb trafficking of persons.

Why am I not surprised?

1. Revisit our case vs notorious Singaporean trafficker, “Alfred Lim”. His cohorts in the Philippines remain at large though formal complaints have been filed with the NBI and CIDG since last year.

2. Due to failure to notify the Ople Center, we were unable to bring two trafficking victims to Malaysia to attend a court hearing on the Lim case. Alfred Lim is now out on bail, and four other victims of his have ran away and staying at the Filipino Workers’ Resource Center in Kuala Lumpur awaiting repatriation.

3. Per a report of the CIDG to Vice-President Noli de Castro, the law enforcement units have 29,000 outstanding warrants of arrest that have not been properly served against illegal recruiters/human traffickers.

4. Considering the length of time it takes for a complaint to blossom into an actual court case, the trafficked victim is often vulnerable to harassment and threats. There is no cohesive, well-funded, and comprehensive support system for victims of trafficking and illegal recruitment.

5. What is more distressing is that licensed recruitment agencies are now becoming a part of the trafficking network by lending their legal status to unscrupulous agents and employers who exploit our workers as slaves. The problem concerning “repro” or reprocessing of job orders have made it easier for syndicates to get a hold of our workers overseas, and sell their contracts knowing that these are flawed to start with.

The Inter-Agency Council Against Human Trafficking does not have a regular appropriation. The Task Force against Human Trafficking lodged with the Commission on Filipinos Overseas is manned by only four people.

Overseas, the mindset of our diplomatic corps is repatriation, not legal justice. A trafficked victim is lumped with other welfare and labor cases awaiting plane tickets home, rather than a modern-day slave whose rights can be defended anywhere in the world, just as in any human rights case.

Much is to be done if we are to improve our standing in the world community as a country that convicts human traffickers.

Since the Anti-Trafficking Law was passed in 2003, we have had only 13 convictions.

Think of it — 29,000 outstanding warrants of arrest, 13 convictions under a 6-year old law, and thousands of trafficked Filipino victims every year.

The Philippines is included in the Tier 2 Watch List along with United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Angola, Iraq, Bangladesh and Cambodia.

As I’ve said — based on our own experience as an NGO helping trafficked victims — I am not surprised.

Author’s Note: This article was posted on Inquirer.Net Global Nation

MANILA, Philippines—It all started last November with an ordinary flier which said: “4,000+ jobs for bus drivers in Dubai.” The paper ad offered a monthly salary of 5,200 dirhams or roughly P67,000. Thousands of these fliers were distributed by a local recruitment agency known as CYM International Services and Placement Agency at different bus terminals all over the country.

And so they came, bus drivers working for a well-known transport company, men who belong to other occupations but knew how to drive, former migrant workers who have worked in the Middle East before, and even a gym instructor. They left their jobs to grab what they thought was an opportunity of a lifetime.

CYM International, licensed with the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA), assured the driver-applicants that after a month’s training in Dubai, they would immediately report to work at the government’s Road and Transport Authority (RTA) as bus drivers.

Lure of the lending firms

CYM charged each applicant a placement fee of P150,300, a violation of existing POEA rules that mandate a fee not beyond the equivalent of the worker’s one month’s salary.

From January to March 2009, about 137 workers were sent by CYM International to Dubai in three batches. Around 40 were left in Manila though they already contracted a loan from the lending company for which they have been harassed. Today, of the 137 drivers, 68 continue to languish in Ajman where they were brought to live in a tenement building right beside a garbage dump. The lucky ones were able to leave Dubai before their tourist visas expired, either to work in Qatar with the help of the Department of Labor and Employment or to return home, then go back to Dubai as legitimate, documented workers.

The Blas F. Ople Policy Center has been helping these drivers in their legal battles since April of this year. In our five years as a non-government organization helping distressed overseas Filipino workers, this is the first case of illegal recruitment and human trafficking that we have ever encountered of this magnitude and with such an elaborate system of deceit and connivance.

Nearly all of the applicants accepted by CYM who couldn’t afford the placement fee were referred to a lending company known as RJJ Lacaba Financing Corporation. A certain Elmer Lim, together with a loan officer of RJJ Lacaba, facilitated the transaction. In two days, checking accounts were opened, cash cards were processed, and documents an inch-thick, as well as more than 20 checks, were signed by the drivers.

Too many checks

According to the drivers, they were neither given time to bring home the documents to read nor furnished copies of whatever it was that they signed. Cabo, one of the drivers, said he and his companions went to Lacaba’s office in the morning and were still signing checks and documents well into the night. Tired, they begged off and asked to just return the following day.

The financing company obviously had some pull with certain banks. Its staff was able to withdraw from the cash cards of the drivers without their knowledge or permission.

When RJJ Lacaba Financing Corporation distributed cash cards from a certain bank to the drivers, the attached receipts showed that several withdrawals had already been made, leaving a balance below a hundred pesos. How could this happen, when their PIN numbers were supposed to be confidential and known only to the owners of these cards?

During a hearing of the Senate Labor Committee chaired by Senator Jose “Jinggoy” Estrada, a bus driver confessed that it was his first time to open a checking account. He simply followed all the instructions of the RJJ Lacaba loan officer. The postdated checks that he signed were all undated, he said. The loan officer asked him to sign several undated checks with two other co-makers.

Later on, the drivers’ pro-bono lawyer Reynaldo Robles, summing up all the checks issued by each of his clients, said he was surprised to learn that each driver-client of RJJ Lacaba owes an aggregate amount of P1.9 million as a result of checks supposedly issued not just to Lacaba but to two insurance companies as well.

Three checks made out to an insurance company by each of the drivers amounted to P345,000. On the day that they signed the checks, the drivers felt rushed into completing all documents and requirements, and their requests for copies of what they signed were denied.

‘Reprocessed’ job orders

As the checks started to fall due and demand letters were sent to their homes, the drivers, some of whom have since returned home, were shocked by the sheer weight of their financial obligations though none of them were ever hired as bus drivers in Dubai as promised by the agency.

CYM International Services and Placement Agency was listed by the POEA as an agency in good standing when the recruitment of drivers was going on. But CYM, which is managed by Connie Paloma, did not have a job order for 4,000 bus drivers to be hired by Dubai’s RTA, as its fliers claimed. It could not have such job orders because the global financial crisis had hit Dubai hard and as a result, RTA had a freeze-hiring policy in place. From the very start, the entire recruitment process was built on sand.

Still, CYM and its Dubai-based agency, Al Toomoh Technical Services Inc. went ahead with its hiring process, enlisting 11 other licensed agencies to “process” the papers of the drivers using different principals or employers in Dubai. This is why the drivers were given employment contracts on the day of their departure. These contracts stated that the 137 workers would be working in Dubai as merchandisers, sales executives, utility helpers, and other positions but not as RTA bus drivers.

All 12 licensed agencies are now under preventive suspension by the POEA.

Based on documents shared by the drivers with the Ople Center, only four workers were actually processed by CYM. The rest of the 133 workers were fanned out to different licensed agencies using job orders that were “reprocessed” or “repro”—a common practice among recruiters.

For a “repro,” an agency can lend the balance of its job orders to another agency for a fee. One agency owner admitted to a staff of the Ople Center that it received P7,500 per head as processing fee from CYM’s Connie Paloma.

“Reprocessing” enables the lead agency to shortcut the process and shepherd its applicants through the POEA without their papers being questioned because the job orders seem in order, at least on paper. Workers leaving under “repro” arrangements become instantly vulnerable to harassment and abuse by their employers and agents abroad because of the disparity in their work and visa documents.

Desperate housewives

The housewives of 68 remaining workers in Dubai have become desperate and continued to borrow money from friends and relatives for remittance to their husbands stranded in Ajman Camp—a pitiful and ironic reversal of roles.

What makes the situation extremely urgent is that out of the remaining 68 drivers, 18 have concrete job offers, this time legitimate, with Emirates Airline Catering. The 18 workers fear that a prolonged delay in the payment of fines could lead to another missed opportunity to earn in Dubai. Only one thing stands in the way of employment—immigration penalties amounting to a rough equivalent of more than P6 million, with daily fines tacked on as weeks pass.

Equally sad is the failure of the children of these housewives to enroll. “It’s so painful but we couldn’t do anything. Some people are even running after us,” one of the housewives said.

Despite their woes, the desperate housewives have found strength in each other, often calling each other up or sending text messages to give updates about pending cases or meeting up at the Ople Center in Pasay City to wait for news.

On Tuesday, Labor Secretary Marianito Roque informed the Blas Ople Center that the immigration penalties of the 68 remaining drivers in Ajman would soon be resolved as an outcome of his talks with Emirates officials last Sunday. The secretary had flown to Dubai for one day just to resolve the matter.

The drivers welcomed this good news with enormous relief and gratitude. Life particularly in Ajman Camp has become even more horrendous as only a single room in the entire building has a working air-condition unit. Because of the intense summer heat in Dubai, the drivers are also in dire need of drinking water, and are reliant at the Office of the Labor Attache for weekly deliveries of water as well as food and diesel to power the building’s electric generator.

‘Repro’ not tolerated

Secretary Roque has also ordered a crackdown on licensed recruitment agencies engaged in the reprocessing of job orders and other forms of illegal recruitment. The POEA decision to cancel the licenses of 12 agencies involved in this scam will undoubtedly send a strong signal to the industry that “repro” will no longer be tolerated.

CYM International Services and Placement Agency has been temporarily closed down. We are now awaiting the decision of the POEA on the administrative complaint for the cancellation of licenses for all 12 conspiring agencies. The drivers also filed a criminal case which is now pending at the Department of Justice.

On June 19, a second hearing will be held at the executive judge’s sala of RTC Manila on our petition for the complainants to be declared as pauper-litigants. Once this petition is approved, the case can be raffled off and hearings on the drivers’ class suit to nullify the financial transactions connected to this illegal recruitment scam shall begin.

Connie Paloma, the CYM’s operations manager who recruited all 137 bus drivers, remains at large and has been spotted one time in Dubai. The request of the Senate to the Department of Foreign Affairs for the cancellation of her passport has been submitted by the Office of the Undersecretary for Migrant Workers’ Affairs to their legal department for further study.

If you were here, I would not be writing this poem with you in mind
Conversations would have more meaning
And time would march with purpose rather than crawl on its belly
Like a sea lion aimlessly slithering through space
If you were here, you would be writing sharp discourse,
Probing pieces that tell us why genius is rare
Hacking at the jungle noise until the path is cleared of thorny bushes
No longer must we settle for a pillow of tears
Because the comfort of your knowledge embraces our fears
And when you speak, dark clouds part to a sun that scorches
Our innocence is demolished by the truths you speak
Hypocrisy exposed, dishonesty disrobes itself in shame
If you were here, try as they might, they would fail
Because deceit is only as good as the next lie
And the next lie, like candle wax, melts next to the tiniest flame
You were the fire then, how I wish your burning light
Is here to ward off the evil that grows in darkness.
If you were here, I need not write at all.

Note: Am sharing this with you because when I read it this afternoon, today on Indepedence Day, I thought it still captured how I feel, especially now with this ongoing effort to stop another despotic attempt by the Lower House to railroad changes to the Constitution.

2.55 PM. Andito ako sa Starbucks, sa harap ng stage kung saan magaganap ang rally laban sa Con-ASS.

Tahimik pa ang kapiligiran. Ordinaryo lang kilos ng mga tao.

Mamaya pupunta dito ang mga kaibigang blogger at ilan na mga Facebook user. Kung libre kayo, pasyal kayo dito.

Kung hindi naman, bakit di sumali sa mga protesta online?

Kung may FaceBook kayo, puntahan ang http://www.causes.com/StopConAssNow at doon magsign up para maging miyembro.

I-add niyo na din ako sa FB. Mas madalas ako doon kaya napapabayaan ko tuloy ang blog ko.

Mamaya, patuloy ang aking pagsusulat dito tungkol sa rally sa Makati.

Samantala, hihigop muna ako ng aking mamahaling kape hangga’t mainit-init pa. Wala pa kasing aksyon. Teka, huwag mong kalimutang magsign up ha?

At kung interesado kayong malaman ang iba pa naming gagawin bilang cyber-advocates vs HR 1109, sumulat sa stopconass09@gmail.com.

May sasagot sa inyong mga komento o tanong doon. Promise.

We had a dinner-forum event last Wednesday, May 12, at Dulcinea in Tomas Morato. We invited several bloggers so that they could meet some of the bus drivers that the Ople Center was able to bring home from Dubai.

Here’s the video that the Blas F. Ople Policy Center produced against Human Trafficking and Illegal Recruitment. Please share this video with your office mates, friends, and family – especially those who have plans on leaving the country as an OFW.

Thank you to all the bloggers who attended the event. We hope that you can help us spread the word.

Here are the posts made by the bloggers. I’ll update this as they make their posts:

Noemi Dado from About My Recovery: OFW alert: Beware of Illegal Recruitment and Human Trafficking

At around 8 o’clock this morning, Fort and I went to the NAIA Terminal 1 to witness the joyous and tearful reunion between the 23 crew members of hijacked MT Stolt Strength and their wives. Mario Antonio, head of the OWWA’s repatriation assistance division, deftly handled the homecoming arrangements.

The Blas F. Ople Policy Center has been assisting four of the wives who eventually became good friends and textmates. It felt good to be a part of the homecoming, and to see how the faces of the seafarers, weary from a long journey, lit up at the sight of their wives.

It would be difficult to even imagine what these seafarers experienced. In a press briefing at the airport’s VIP lounge, the ship captain revealed that one of their most dreadful moments was when they were stuck at sea after being released by the pirates, because of low fuel supply. A German ship came near enough to provide them with food, medicines, and water. Unfortunately, the same ship could only stay for 3 hours especially upon learning that the tanker that would add bunker fuel to MT Stolt Strength was still four days away.

Captain Abelardo (I wasn’t able to get his last name) said they were afraid that another group of pirates might attempt to hijack them again, especially since they were still within the radar radius of the Somalian sea bandits.

Eventually, the ship was able to reach safe harbor and dock at Oman. From Oman, they (the 23 seafarers) boarded a flight home.

Asked whether they were harmed by the pirates, the captain said that there were attempts especially against crew member Borreta and that he had to use his body to shield his shipmate. He stressed that the reason they were alive was due to prayers and God’s help. None of the seafarers volunteered any other information citing a consensus among them that only the captain of the ship would respond to media queries.

All throughout the interview, the shipping company’s representative was present and seated beside the captain. When asked about ransom payments, the representative declined, and explained that the company didn’t want to give any information that could jeopardize the welfare of remaining captives.