For dead Pinay in ‘Kuwait freezer’: Family demands justice

ILOILO CITY, Philippines — Just like most Filipino workers who tried their luck abroad, 28-year-old Joanna Demafiles had also her family's welfare in mind when she left to work for Kuwait.

She had her eyes set on building a house for her family at Barangay Ferraris in Sara town of Iloilo, and sending her youngest sibling to school.

But such plans turned out not for Joanna to fulfill. Her body was found on Tuesday (February 6) inside a freezer in an abandoned apartment in Kuwait, after she went missing and could not be contacted by her family for a year.

On May 18, 2014, Joanna left the country to work as a domestic helper in Kuwait. While working abroad, her elder sister Criselda, in an interview over Aksyon Radyo-Iloilo, said that Joanna rarely called them.

In those rare occasions, she asked for a mobile phone load saying it was more expensive there. She was sent P150 worth of load twice. "She doesn't tell anything about us. She just said she's ok every time we asked her about her work," Criselda said.

In the later part of 2016, Joanna called her Manila-based sister Juliet, telling the latter that she would extend her employment for one more year, after her three-year work contract in Kuwait. Joanna used to work for a Lebanese employer and his Syrian wife, and her family presumed then that her extended work term was with the same employer.

Joanna also informed her family that she could not send them allowance because she was saving money to finish their home, once she ends her contract. But two months had passed then, and with no communication with any member of her family, Criselda said they began to worry.

She could not be contacted through the landline or her mobile phone. Her Facebook account was apparently deactivated. By February 2017, Juliet went to the Overseas Workers Welfare Administration (OWWA) office in Manila to ask for help in looking for her sister.

The family was told that they have other cases that were reported ahead of Joanna's. No news was heard about Joanna's disappearance until this February, OWWA representatives in their Iloilo office personally went to Sara town and broke the news to Joanna’s family.

Joanna's mother said she did not see the picture of her daughter while inside the freezer. It was her brother-in-law, Barangay Councilman Pablo Demafiles, who saw the picture and confirmed that it was indeed Joanna. "When I saw it on television, I knew it was her," Pablo told The Freeman.

Criselda also said she had no doubt that it was Joanna's body who was stuffed half-naked in a freezer. "My sister doesn't deserve it. Justice must be served," she said in the dialect.

In between tears, Joanna's mother also cried for justice, as she called on that the perpetrators should be exacted with punishment just what they did to her daughter. "I hope they would be arrested soon," she added.

The mother described Joanna as a good daughter and a kind sister. The sixth in a brood of nine, Joanna worked as a househelp in Manila after graduating from high school at Sara National High School.

Aside from building a home for his parents, Joanna took it upon herself to bring her youngest sibling to school. "That's one of the reasons why she decided to go abroad," Criselda said.

Her sister, Joyce, used to take up B.S. in Criminology but had to temporarily stop going to school because Joanna failed to send her allowance. "She used to tell me that she would be there when I graduate," Joyce said.

The OWWA office said it made a follow-up on the complaint of Joanna's family but the agency, which sent her to Kuwait, could not be reached anymore after it closed business.

Jack Arroyo, OWWA-Iloilo public information officer, said the government would shoulder the repatriation of Joanna's remains. Presently, the OWWA is still waiting for an official report from Kuwait authorities about Joanna's death, and its circumstances.

Arroyo said OWWA is also checking on the validity of Joanna's OWWA membership to ascertain if she would be entitled to insurance, burial, and livelihood assistance to be extended to her family. He also assured that the government would bear the costs once charges would be pursued against the perpetrators.

An autopsy would be conducted on Joanna. When found, her body showed strangulation marks, which was assumed to be the cause of her death. (FREEMAN)