Pinoy workers recount ordeal in Syria

 MANILA, Philippines - Ruth Pana, an overseas Filipino worker (OFW) in Syria, vividly remembers the bullet-riddled windows of her employer’s house in Damascus.

She also remembers Syrian troops killing the son of her employer.

“His chest was opened like there was large steel that passed through it,” she said, sobbing.

“Do you know that we buried him at the back of the house because there were no more cemeteries?”

Pana escaped to the Philippine embassy in Damascus before she was repatriated home on an evacuation flight.

She was among nearly 300 Filipino workers who fled the worsening civil war in the biggest single repatriation effort negotiated between the Philippines and Syria.

On Tuesday, the International Organization of Migration flew them home.

They brought with them tales of horror and sleepless nights as violence between government forces and rebels fighting to overthrow Syrian President Bashar Assad spiraled out of control.

The 29-year-old Pana said her employer supported the opposition and his son was killed during a recent demonstration.

After the family’s house where she lived and worked was shattered by bullets, they all fled to a neighbor’s basement to escape being caught in the crossfire between government troops and the rebels.

Pana said rebels occupied a military camp behind her employer’s residence, but the military launched a counter-attack and bombardment last week using helicopters.

“If you could just see the bodies, you would be throwing up,” she said.

She said when her employer and his family moved to a rented house, she contacted the Philippine embassy, which sent a car that took her away to the care of Filipino diplomats until she was repatriated.

Her employer initially didn’t want her to leave as she was still under contract, but later relented, Pana said.

Glemer Cabidog, 34, a caretaker of a villa in Damascus for a wealthy Kuwaiti businessman, said she would not have returned home if not for the civil war.

“We asked permission from our employer but after three months... he said he won’t allow us to leave,” she said. “That’s why we escaped.”

Cabidog, who was paid $200 a month, said she and another Filipino worker at the villa decided to leave after a clash two weeks ago between Syrian troops and demonstrators in their neighborhood.

“We didn’t want to die there,” she said.

She said they made arrangements with the Philippine embassy to pick them up a week later.

Cabidog said her employer has stayed in Kuwait for the last nine months.

She would get food and other provisions after requesting for supplies from one of his secretaries, who would have them delivered to the compound, she added.

The 263 Filipinos had sought refuge at the embassy until Foreign Affairs Secretary Albert del Rosario traveled to Syria last week to arrange their evacuation.

Some of the women were crying as they waited for officers from the Overseas Workers Welfare Administration to process their papers.

Del Rosario said up to 600 more OFWs want to return home.

An estimated 3,000 have decided to stay in Syria for the time being, he added.

Pag-IBIG payment

OFWs repatriated from Syria will receive their Pag-IBIG contributions and will have a moratorium on the payment of their loans, Vice President Jejomar Binay said yesterday.

The chairman of the Pag-IBIG Fund said the last batch of OFWs repatriated from Syria may receive their contributions amounting to as much as P100,000 each.                                        – AP, Jose Rodel Clapano