Editorial
Enough of lip-service for our OFWs
For the past decades, individual tales of horror from hundreds, if not thousands of desperate overseas Filipino workers have been met generally with indifference by the national government. This policy of apathy has led labor officials and trustees of the Overseas Workers’ Welfare Administration to be lethargic in their planning for the welfare of our overseas workers and focus on how the billions of OWWA funds can be funneled to some officials’ bank accounts.
It took the mass exodus from Lebanon and the belated reaction of the national government coming to the succor of our helpless workers mostly women, for our countrymen to realize that the horror tales are true and are perpetrated wholesale worldwide.
Our domestic helpers overseas are treated like slaves, a treatment that makes the household pets of their employers a lucky lot. Others have it worse. Our young women, who risk life and limb to seek a better life for their families they leave behind, find themselves treated as sex slaves.
All these indicate that our national government has done very little over the years to secure the welfare of the very people it regards as modern-day heroes. While we can understand some lapses that may come between frantic preparations for a mass evacuation, nothing can ever explain or justify the continued abuses heaped on our OFWs by their abusive employers right under the very noses of our consuls.
Now that the wholesale abuse is clearly out in the open, Pangasinan’s congressmen must seek a thorough review and examination of policies and contingent plans of the national government in securing the welfare of the our OFWs. We have thousands of Pangasinenses overseas who we suspect are quietly suffering from the clutches of abusive employers; they deserve to be on top of our congressmen’s priority agenda.
Speaker Jose de Venecia in particular, he who is counted as one among those who pioneered the overseas employment industry, must not stop at applauding the seemingly successful evacuation of our OFWs from Lebanon. He must perforce compel the all accountable officials in the Labor department, the Philippine Overseas Employment Agency and OWWA to show what they have done. Only in so doing will he and our congressmen realize what they have not done for our gallant OFWs.
Enough of lip service for our men and women who single-handedly helped propped up the nation’s economy in spite of the unabated stealing and corruption in our government offices.
Paging Congressmen Arthur Celeste, Amado Espino Jr., Generoso Tulangan, Mark Cojuangco, Conrado Estrella III and Speaker Jose de Venecia!
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