Little Notes

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.

News Release
Blas F. Ople Policy Center
April 29, 2009

CYM International, RJJ Lacaba financing company in hot water over recruitment
scammsn

A licensed recruitment agency and a private lending company must now appear
before the Senate and House of Representative and face a class suit from a local
NGO after it swindled 137 bus drivers out of their money and fervent dreams in a
massive illegal recruitment scam.

The Blas F. Ople Policy Center, a non-government organization that assists
distressed overseas workers, announced today that it is filing a class suit
against CYM International Services and Placement Agency and RJJ Lacaba financing
company for committing illegal recruitment practices that led to the swindling
of 137 bus drivers in Dubai.

“We will sue for millions in damages and more importantly, for the court to
immediately
nullify the exploitative and onerous terms and conditions attached
to the loans amounting to P150,000 per driver,” Ople said.

ABAKADA party-list representative Jonathan dela Cruz, for his part, announced
that he filed House Resolution No. 1118 calling for a House inquiry into the
recruitment scam. He also castigated the POEA for the undue delay in hearing the
case. “The evidence is staggering and each of the 137 bus drivers have similar
accounts of what happened. Why is the POEA taking so long to hear this case and
in moving for the immediate cancellation of the license of CYM International?”
dela Cruz said.

Dela Cruz told media that ABAKADA and its allied group Social Justice Movement will
join the Ople Center in filing a class suit against the erring recruitment agency
and the lending company. “We will support the bus drivers and the
Ople Center in this legal battle,” dela Cruz said.

The
drivers appealed to the government for assistance in looking for
alternative jobs overseas and in meeting the expenses needed to pursue justice
and keep their households afloat.

“Mahirap po ang katayuan naming lahat. Nagresign kami sa aming mga trabaho
kasi POEA-accredited naman ang ahensya namin ‘yun pala wala namang totoong
trabaho sa Dubai at binaon pa kami sa napakalaking pagkakautang,” Claro
Oliver, one of the drivers said.

The owners of the company and lending agency failed to show up at the Senate
hearing conducted by Senator Jinggoy Estrada, chair of the committee on labor
and employment. Estrada instructed the committee secretariat to seek a hold
departure order against the management and owners of both companies.

Former labor undersecretary Susan Ople said 22 bus drivers who have recently
returned from Dubai as well as the wives of the drivers still at Ajman Camp
recently met with the
Ople Center’s legal counsel, Atty. Reynaldo Robles of
ChanRobles & Associates to discuss the case.

Atty. Robles said that more than a hundred bus drivers remaining in Dubai have
started sending forms to delegate powers of attorney to their wives. “The
documentary evidence is overwhelming, and we are pursuing this case precisely to
send a strong message to unscrupulous licensed agencies and abusive lending
companies that they should stop exploiting the vulnerabilities of our
workers,” he explained.

In a press conference held today at a coffee shop in Quezon
City, the bus drivers issued an appeal to the Philippine Overseas Employment
Administration to act with dispatch on their case.

“Narinig po naming na may balak umalis ng bansa ‘yung mga may-ari ng
ahensya. Kung ito po ay totoo, sino pa po ang mananagot sa nangyari sa amin?”
the drivers said.

The POEA has scheduled its first
hearing on the case of the 137 bus drivers on
May 5.

END

Just as we were starting to see streaks of light and life in a moribund global economy, Mexico was zapped with swine flu and now the world is feeling the shakes from a possible pandemic.

The implications of a swine flu pandemic on our own little corner of the world are enormous.

Right now, international travel is restricted due to one’s budget limitations. A viral epidemic changes all that. Even those who can afford to travel will hold back, and choose to stay behind their individual fortresses.

Kung sa ngayon, may mga hotels tayo sa Metro Manila at sa labas ng bansa na nagtatanggal ng contractual employees dahil sa global financial crisis, ano pa kaya kung dumami ang biktima ng swine flu?

Our OFWs especially those engaged in household work and agricultural services are just as vulnerable. The latter because we do have a lot of agricultural and meat processing workers overseas, and the former because they are often the last to be reached by information because of their work circumstances. Also, if their employers travel often, these household service workers would be the first to catch the virus when they get home. Now, do you think that all foreign employers shall be as caring as you in seeing to it that their foreign domestic help gets the best hospital care?

Our department of health has a pretty good record in dealing with SARS, and other extraordinary medical challenges. We also commend the cities and municipalities that have taken a pro-active role in ensuring that their constituents would get the best protection if swine flu breaks out in the country. Let’s hope that our luck holds in keeping this away from our borders.

Am I being alarmist? I don’t think so. It is important that we confront this health problem and its implications on our own economy and the state of our workers here and abroad, before a pandemic status is declared, which we all should pray not to happen.

Our Philippine Embassies and Consulates must reach out to Filipino community leaders and domicile workers and inform them about the swine virus, its symptoms and how one can at best protect himself or herself.

A prevailing global financial crisis plus a swine flu pandemic equals disaster for a floundering economy and an ailing health care system, in the Philippines and elsewhere.

Forget Cha-cha. Ignore the mudslinging among and between politicians. A vaccine-resistant flu virus may yet plunge the whole world into the deepest depression ever. We have Filipinos living in Mexico, the United States, South Korea and New Zealand, where swine flu cases have been reported. A pandemic spares no one, because even if we declare ourselves to be swine flu-free, risk aversion shall be the name of the game not only in corporate boardrooms but in households, big and small, across the globe.

I believe that Ted Failon is innocent. His daughter is adamant about this, the household help swear by it, too.

Why then can’t the Quezon City police respect the privacy and right to grieve of the bereaved family? What justice was there to obstruct when the criminal investigation had yet to start? And why arrest Trina’s own siblings? Is their willingness to accept their sister’s suicide an obstruction of justice?

It makes me wonder — would this have happened if the husband was not a famous and highly-opinionated broadcaster like Ted Failon?

News Release
Blas F. Ople Policy Center
April 12, 2009

Filipino community rallies around 137 stranded bus drivers in Dubai; Ople Center seeks immediate probe and suspension of licensed agency involved in their recruitment

In keeping with the spirit of Lent, the “bayanihan” spirit was alive and well in Dubai as Filipinos pitch in canned goods, water, toiletries, and other food items to help 137 bus drivers stranded and looking for jobs after being deployed there by a licensed recruitment agency.

The stranded drivers were overwhelmed by the show of hospitality and generosity by Filipino community leaders who traveled in a convoy yesterday (Black Saturday). According to Ares Gutierrez, sub-editor of XPRESS, the Dubai-based paper that broke the story about the stranded bus drivers, most of the victims were confused as to what they should do next.

One of the drivers, Claro Oliver of Rizal province, contacted the Blas F. Ople Policy Center yesterday for help in pursuing justice against their recruiter, CYM International Services, a licensed recruitment agency. The agency promised the Filipino drivers good-paying jobs at Dubai’s government transport agency known as Roads and Transport Authority (RTA). Some of the drivers, some of who quit their local jobs despite years of service, have been waiting to be hired by RTA since January of this year. Desperate for food and cash, the stranded drives have resorted to scavenging a dumpsite for scrap food.

Former labor undersecretary Susan Ople, who heads the Blas F. Ople Center, urged the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration to immediately investigate and if possible, suspend the said agency and its counterpart in Dubai, Al Toomoh Technical Services. “The sheer number of victims involved constitutes an act of economic sabotage by this licensed agency. We urge immediate action and for the owners of the agency to be barred from leaving the country.”

The bus drivers, nearly half of who hail from the province of Bulacan, complained to the Ople Center that their passports were being held by the foreign counterpart of their local agency in Dubai. This prevents them from applying for new jobs. Majority of the victims are professional drivers who have worked for years in reputable transport companies such as Baliuag Transit. The Center said the Philippine Consulate should intervene and obtain the passports of the stranded workers.

The plight of the 137 bus drivers were first exposed by Filipino journalists Jay Hilotin and Ares Gutierrez of Xpress publications based on a tip from a fellow Filipino journalist working at Gulf News. Word quickly spread through e-mail and soon, an assembly time and place were designated to enable Filipinos to join an aid convoy leading to the camp where the bus drivers were staying. A Filipino association of Airsoft aficionados whose game was suspended last Friday, pitched in by giving cash donations.

Aside from lack of food, the drivers were sharing living quarters near the Ajman garbage dumpsite. Their building’s electric power is sourced from a generator, giving them only 3 to 4 hours of electricity. The building also has inadequate water supply.

According to the drivers, they paid as much as P150,000 to CYM International Services in exchange for jobs at RTA. Some of the drivers have been staying in Dubai waiting for the promised jobs to come into fruition since January.

Based on interviews with XPRESS, driver Max Sumulong, 34, one of the victims, said last year CYM had offered him a job as a driver for Dh5,200 a month and he had given the agency 10,000 pesos (Dh1,000) as “processing fee”.

“The agency had asked each one of us to take out a 150,000-peso (Dh11,418) loan from a lending agency recommended by them and made us sign undated cheques worth 405,000 pesos (about Dh40,000) addressed to a bank and the lending agency, payable in 15 months,” he said.

Eliseo Maximo, who has worked for 11 years as a bus driver in Manila, said: “We’ve been collecting aluminium cans, selling them at Dh4 per kg in Ajman, just to have something to eat.”

The stranded bus drivers are hoping that the Philippine Consulate can help them look for jobs in Dubai rather than be sent home. “Their biggest worry is on how they can repay the lending agency. If they come home, whatever they earn as bus drivers won’t be enough to pay off their loans and still sustain the needs of their families,” Ople explained.

Ople said she is awaiting documents from the bus drivers that would help speed up the POEA’s investigation into the alleged illegal recruitment practices of CYM International Services and its counterpart in Dubai. The Filipino community has lent the drivers a photocopy machine so they could consolidate and reproduce all the documents needed to bolster their case.

The former labor undersecretary also hoped that the 137 drivers would be able to meet President Arroyo, Vice-President Noli de Castro and other high-ranking officials in their visit to Dubai.

Picture courtesy of Ares Gutierrez of XPRESS, a Dubai-based paper

My dear friend,

What were you thinking?
Riding that chopper late in the afternoon
To fulfill a role played so many times before
To set the stage for your boss, the President

Routine, it may have seemed
Another event, another speech, a different audience
But there’s nothing routine about going down
In flames, deep in a jungle, where no one heard you fall

I will miss you, Jocap
Down-to-earth, friendly and warm
Grace under pressure, absorber of shocks
Storyteller, visual artist, sober planner

What were you thinking?
Riding in that chopper, climbing mountains
In a cloudy afternoon, where pilots fear to fly
You flew, and now we all miss you

In heaven’s arms, you rest.
In our memories, you live.
Nothing will char your smile;
nor mar the way you will be remembered,
You did your duty,
Like a good soldier, even though you
became the saddest story on Holy Week.

We will miss you.
That Jocap grin, those Jocap moments.
God bless you.
Goodbye.

News Release
Blas F. Ople Policy Center
March 29, 2009

Ople Center denounces HK journalist for using Filipino maid as “pawn” in Spratly controversy

Former labor undersecretary Susan Ople called on the Philippine Consulate particularly its Office of the Labor Attache to look into the work conditions of “Luisa”, a household worker employed by Hong Kong journalist Chip Tsao after the latter mocked the Philippines as a “nation of servants” in his column written for HK Magazine.

“His very announcement that he gave her Filipino maid a harsh lecture and warned her to tell every one of her compatriots that Spartly Islands belong to China or she’d lose her wages, is already a sign of an unstable, irresponsible and racist employer who resorts to verbal abuse even for perceived bilateral and historic infractions. Luisa deserves a sane and more humane employer while he deserves to clean up his own filth,” Ople said.

The Blas F. Ople Policy Center said the Philippine Consulate in Hong Kong should immediately call the attention of the Hong Kong magazine’s publisher and editorial board for Tsao’s provocative and bigoted write-up. “The household is not the place to resolve multiple claims to the Spratly Islands, and Filipino domestic workers should not suffer because of it,” the Center stressed.

It also called on the labor attaché to check on Luisa and on other Filipino maids who may be facing harassments from like-minded employers. “I am sure that Tsao is quite unique in his small-mindedness but the fact that the article was even published calls for vigilance, if not outrage, on the part of our consulate and the Department of Foreign Affairs,” the Center said.

In a column that went online on March 27, Tsao wrote:

“Manila has just claimed sovereignty over the scattered rocks in the South China Sea called the Spratly Islands, complete with a blatant threat from its congress to send gunboats to the South China Sea to defend the islands from China if necessary. This is beyond reproach. The reason: there are more than 130,000 Filipina maids working as $3,580-a-month cheap labor in Hong Kong. As a nation of servants, you don’t flex your muscles at your master, from whom you earn most of your bread and butter.”

“As a patriotic Chinese man, the news has made my blood boil. I summoned Louisa, my domestic assistant who holds a degree in international politics from the University of Manila, hung a map on the wall, and gave her a harsh lecture. I sternly warned her that if she wants her wages increased next year, she had better tell every one of her compatriots in Statue Square on Sunday that the entirety of the Spratly Islands belongs to China.”

“Grimly, I told her that if war breaks out between the Philippines and China, I would have to end her employment and send her straight home, because I would not risk the crime of treason for sponsoring an enemy of the state by paying her to wash my toilet and clean my windows 16 hours a day. With that money, she would pay taxes to her government, and they would fund a navy to invade our motherland and deeply hurt my feelings.” (Source: http://hk-magazine.com/feature/war-home#comment-2773)

Ople also called the attention of the national government to the last paragraph of Tsao’s column:

“They may have Barack Obama and the hawkish American military behind them, but we have a hostage in each of our homes in the Mid-Levels or higher. Some of my friends told me they have already declared a state of emergency at home. Their maids have been made to shout “China, Madam/Sir” loudly whenever they hear the word “Spratly.” They say the indoctrination is working as wonderfully as when we used to shout, “Long live Chairman Mao!” at the sight of a portrait of our Great Leader during the Cultural Revolution. I’m not sure if that’s going a bit too far, at least for the time being.” (Source: http://hk-magazine.com/feature/war-home#comment-2773)

The Center denounced such actions of Tsao’s friends as a concrete example of racial and political intolerance. “Apparently, Mr. Tsao and his friends think they are the more supreme race, and are now using what should be strictly an employer-employee relationship to drive home this point. We must not allow them to use our workers as pawns and hostages as a consequence of our just and historical claim.”

News Release
Blas F. Ople Policy Center
March 25, 2009

Ople Center seeks end to trafficking of Filipino women to Malaysia

The Blas F. Ople Policy Center, a non-government organization engaged in the fight against human trafficking and illegal recruitment, urged the Philippine government to take serious steps in addressing the illegal recruitment and trafficking of Filipino women to Malaysia where they are made to work as modern-day slaves.

The Center issued the call in response to the repatriation of a new batch of illegal recruitment and trafficking victims that arrived in Pampanga last Monday. The victims included nine women who were recruited by a notorious syndicate led by a Singaporean trafficker based in Malaysia who uses the alias, “Alfred Lim.”

“The victims have done their share. Assisted by our Center and the Department of Justice with the support of the Philippine Embassy, they bravely filed charges against their illegal recruiters here and in Malaysia. They have extended full cooperation and have in fact even filed complaints against immigration agents who escorted them out of DMIA. The ball is now in the government’s court,” former labor undersecretary Susan Ople, who heads the Center, explained.

She urged the Department of Foreign Affairs to elevate cases of human trafficking for discussion during the next round of the RP-Malaysia joint bilateral consultations. She also urged the Philippine Embassy particularly its Police and Immigration Attache to be more aggressive in pursuing the case against Lim. “Nakalaya na pala si Lim pero ni hindi kami nasabihan. Nalaman lang namin ito mula sa kanyang mga nabiktima,” Ople said. (“We were not informed that Lim had already been freed on bail. We only found about it when we met some of the repatriated victims.”)

Ople also railed against a provision in the Anti-Trafficking Act of 2003 that provides for the right of privacy of the accused on equal footing with that of the victims. “This confidentiality clause prevents us and even the government from warning more women about Lim and his cohorts despite outstanding warrants for their arrest.” RA 9208 states (underscoring supplied):

EC.7 Confidentiality – At any stage of the investigation, prosecution and trial of an offense under this Act, law enforcement officers, prosecutors, judges, court personnel and medical practitioners, as well as parties to the case, shall recognize the right to privacy of the trafficked person and the accused. Towards this end, law enforcement officers, prosecutors and judges to whom the complaint has been referred may, whenever necessary to ensure a fair and impartial proceeding, and after considering all circumstances for the best interest of the parties, order a closed-door investigation, prosecution or trial.

The name and personal circumstances of the trafficked person or of the accused, or any other information tending to establish their identities and such circumstances or information shall not be disclosed to the public.

The NGO expressed dismay that Lim’s syndicate continues to recruit and deploy women workers to exploitative jobs in Malaysia with some of the victims ending up as prostitutes. Ople surmised that the said trafficker has already victimized more than a hundred Filipino women workers.

“He uses scouts, mostly women, in an elaborate scheme to recruit jobless Filipino women who are promised good jobs, quick deployment, and the freedom to switch employers if they are unhappy. But once the victims arrive in Malaysia, the syndicate confiscates their mobile phones and passports, and chooses their employers. The workers who returned to Lim by dissatisfied employers are maltreated and abused. No matter how hard they work, the victims don’t get salaries because the employers would say that they have already paid a full amount to Lim.”

“We urge the government to take this case seriously and to show to the world our fervent commitment to end human trafficking and modern-day slavery.”

The Blas F. Ople Policy Center issued a press release today proposing a program on conditional cash transfers to help children of displaced OFWs stay in school. The cash transfers will be contingent on the following conditions: 1) enrollment this coming schoolyear; and, 2) monthly medical check-ups for children enrolled in this program.

The text of the press release is as follows:

News Release
Blas F. Ople Policy Center
March 22, 2009

Ople Center bats for conditional cash transfers to keep kids of displaced OFWs in school