23 runaway OFWs arrive home from Jordan

TWENTY-THREE overseas Filipino workers, plus a seven-month-old boy, arrived home Monday from Jordan with Senate president Manuel Villar who paid for their plane tickets and overstaying fees worth about half a million pesos.

The OFWs, all but one of them women, had run away from their Jordanian employers complaining of physical abuse, low pay or non-payment of wages.

While admitting that the expense is now beginning to drill holes in his pocket, Villar said seeing an OFW reunited with her family is priceless. He said he will also scour the globe just to bring home more distressed OFWs.

Villar, who has announced plans of running for president in 2010, said he is now looking at Bahrain, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia as his next stop in his OFW repatriation effort. Both Kuwait and Saudi Arabia have large concentrations of OFWs and Villar said he has been told that OFW runaways in Saudi Arabia only sleep in the streets or under bridges.

"This advocacy (of mine) is permanent and not just for politics. Tuloy-tuloy na ito win or lose at marami pa akong iuuwi nating mga kababayan," Villar said at the airport yesterday.

Villar hailed the drafting of a memorandum of understanding on labor cooperation by Philippine embassy officials and the Jordanian government that will fix minimum age requirement for domestic helpers at 30 and blacklist Jordanian recruiters and employers who have a record of maltreating OFWs.

"Fixing the age requirement is important as many of the runaways who sought refuge in our Amman embassy are underage. There are 13-year-olds who easily passed as 24-year-olds," Villar said, adding that the labor center in Jordan currently houses 116 runaway OFWs, only 12 of whom are documented.

He said he will set up a separate foundation that would solely work on the repatriation of abused OFWs, especially the minors, those who are ill, and those unable to come home for lack of fare money. "We must reform the system, not only through legislation but through actual implementation of programs or laws," he said.

He also said that the next time government decides to impose a deployment ban, it should first look into the root cause of the problem. "Mag-explore muna ng mga solutions bago mag-ban. Mukha tayong katawa-tawa sa ban na di mo naman kayang i-implement," Villar said, referring to the continued entry of six to 12 OFWs a day into Jordan by indirect routes despite the government-imposed ban.

The same number of distressed OFWs also arrives at the Philippine embassy or at the labor center operated by the Overseas Workers Welfare Administration in Amman complaining of abuse or low wages.

The OFWs who arrived home yesterday with Villar were Nasria Abdulsamad with her baby boy, Lorna Almanzor, Bebina Bakundo, Norhuda Balayman, Cherry Batulan, Rosalie Cabrera, Myra Datulimba, Gloria de la Cruz, Baiqueen Guiapal, Norhaya Kamanga, Linda Manasal, Wilma Maneja, Samina Mensag, Alma Nobleza, Digna Ramos, Alma Domingo Rifani, Leah Jen Raul, Johaira Salendab, Fe Padua, Lorna Zoleta, Andrea Santocildes, Myrna de Ocampo and Pedro Sandoval, the oldest and the only male in the batch. – Dennis Gadil