KUWAIT — The nagging question that begs to be asked with a lot of high brows is the classic line of the opposition, the NGOs and the skeptical, cynical publics: Is the government guilty again? Every time tragedies happen (even fortuitous events), the accusing fingers are pointed to government. Of course, it has responsibilities and accountabilities. Government is mandated to do many things and is expected to deliver a lot of things. It has been entrusted much and much is expected from it. That is a given and let us not debate on an admitted proposition. The question is: Should it be government alone that should answer all these accusations? Yes, government has a lot of explaining to do. But so are others too.
Is the husband of every female OFW not to be blamed for sending his wife away, if he is fit to work himself? Are the families not to be blamed for asking too much money and for spending it in luxury and pretentious and ostentatious display of extravagance? Are the recruiters (some recruiters, of course are good) not to be blamed for making excessive impositions on the cost of deployment? Are the usurers and money lenders not to be blamed for bleeding the OFWs with outrageous interest rates and unexplained costs of lending placement fees? Are the employers not to be blamed for being too cruel, too unreasonable, too demanding and too lacking of respect for human dignity? Is society in general not to be blamed for remaining blind, deaf and mute in the midst of the “slings and arrows of outrageous fortunes” confronting the OFWs? Only those who are without sin may cast the stone of accusation.
A time for healing
What we need today is less blaming and more productive solutions. The OFWs are sick and tired of being used by politicians to advance their partisan political agenda, disguised as advocacies for labor migrants; of ideologues and political propagandists who use OFWs to promote their doctrines and ideologies; and of NGOs and religious demagogues who use the pulpit to destroy what is Caesar’s but fail to offer the constructive agenda of God for his lost tribes of migrants. What we need now is for good people with no selfish agenda to come together and help people like Mae Vecina who are still out there in the guarded households of some cruel employers, people who treat our OFWs like slaves.
I did my share. I left the comforts of corporate life and embraced the life of extreme difficulties to work as Labor-Attaché with meager salary. I left my family and my job in San Miguel Corporation and Pepsi Cola, the glory of being a professor of UST, FEU and UE and live the life in the desert to serve the OFWs. I was sick and tired of blaming the government. I am helping it, since 2005, for four years now. I suffer a lot in health, in finances, in homesickness. But look, I am not only cursing the dark. I am lighting a little candle in the dark. It is not enough. I am not enough. But I’m doing something. How about you?
PINOY TIDBITS: The 67 OFWs arrested in Saudi, alleged to be gays and their “Papas”, although released on the bond of their employers, are facing criminal charges for cross-dressing, wearing make-up and gowns and public display of homosexuality which are serious violations of Islamic laws. If convicted, they shall be jailed for three months and subjected to 60 to 100 lashes.
* * *
Email: polo1jabriya@yahoo.com