Pinay killed in Bahrain had planned to come home before tragedy struck

ILOILO CITY — Queenie Aboboto-Dungca, the 31-year-old overseas Filipino worker (OFW) who died in Bahrain last week when the Al Dana, a floating restaurant and tourist boat, capsized off the coast of Bahrain, had already planned to return home before the tragedy.

Her mother, Edna Aboboto, said her daughter left for Bahrain only in January this year to work as an in-house tutor for a Bahraini family.

However, the employment did not turn out well as the family was reportedly "harsh" with her. But her plan to return home did not materialize as the employment agency was allegedly charging her and her two companions P200,000 for the trip back to the Philippines. So Dungca decided to stay and make the most out of the opportunities available to her in the country.

The agency got her a job as a supervisor at the Al Dana.

Dungca’s story is like that of many other OFWs. She resigned from the Permits and Licensing Division of the Iloilo City Hall to seek better opportunities abroad, leaving her three-year-old son Jules Archangel in her mother’s care.

When The STAR visited their home yesterday morning, the boy was watching cartoons on television. Aboboto said her grandson believes that his mother is now in heaven.

She said his only wish when his mom left was for her to send him toy soldiers and guns. Ironically, it was Jules who was Dungca’s main reason for leaving. Jules’ father, she said, left them shortly after his birth and has not been heard from since.

Aboboto said that a month before the Al Dana capsized, her daughter had been dreaming of death.

"But I told her not to say things like that," she said. "I did not pay it any attention. We brushed it aside because it was only a dream."

The dreams occurred, she said, sometime January or February, shortly after Dungca left for the Middle East.

The last time she spoke with her daughter on the telephone on March 27, Dungca sounded very happy since there were a lot of customers on the boat, which for her meant more than the usual amount of tips.

Dungca was one of two Filipino crewmembers of the Al Dana tourist boat who died in the incident. The other was Nenita Jacob Bari. Another crewmember, Lanette Salgado, survived.

There were four Filipinos out of some 58 who perished. The remains of one of the fatalities, Edwin Batacan, arrived in Manila at 1:35 p.m. yesterday aboard Gulf Air Flight GF 154.

Representatives from the Overseas Workers’ Welfare Administration (OWWA) accompanied Batacan’s wife Lourdes, 12-year-old son Edric and cousin Julita Velasco at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA) to claim the body.

Batacan’s remains were immediately brought to his hometown in Nueva Ecija.

According to Velasco, Batacan, together with 56 co-workers were celebrating a company-sponsored event aboard the Al Dana when it sank.

She said surviving crewmembers of the boat disclosed that the pleasure boat, which was only inaugurated last month, had about 200 passengers on board when it sank although its capacity was only 120 to 150 persons. Reports from Bahrain also said the boat was managed by a deckhand and not a captain. — With Pia Lee-Brago, Rainier Allan Ronda