OFWs who are facing legal troubles

While there are millions of OFWs all over the world who are doing very well, and are bringing honor to our country and remitting 20 billion US dollars a year to our economy, we have a number of Filipino migrant workers who are facing serious legal problems abroad.

From Asia to the Middle East, from Europe to the Americas, there are Filipino workers who get entangled with the laws of their host government. In fact, we have some who were convicted for drug-related cases in China and many who were convicted for murder in Saudi Arabia, UAE and Kuwait.

In all these cases, the DFA, DOLE, OWWA, the Labor Attachés and Welfare Officers are under constant pressures to extend legal, financial and other forms of assistance to the accused or convicts, regardless of our opinions on whether they are guilty or innocent. The politicians at home, under pressure from the families of the accused, would usually put the government to task, for not doing enough or for not doing well our responses to these legal problems.

In the face of the substantial reduction of the DFA budget for next year, and in the light of the increasing number of these legal problems, we are now facing a situation which, in our own words, the demands for services are Kapantay ay Langit, while our resources are Bato sa Buhangin. We are expected to slay the dragons in an alien land with no weapon but toothpicks with which to fight the windmills of our compatriots’ legal entanglements.

We have an array of precedents that shall guide us in our responses to these. The cases of Flor Contemplacion and Sarah Balabagan, as well as the case of Jakatia Pawa in Kuwait tell us that we are duty-bound to help even if the OFW is already found guilty by the courts of the host government.

We are compelled to close our eyes even if the host country would brand us as protectors of murderers and drug pushers. We know deep in our hearts that the Filipinos are worth dying for, even if the host government would expel us for being “persona non grata’’.

We do our job even as we are being attacked by both the host country’s press for obstructing their justice system and our own press for not doing enough to save our compatriots from execution. Although we know that some of our fellow Filipinos really committed the crimes they are charged with, we are still being asked to “fight the unbeatable foe’’ and to “march into hell for a heavenly cause’’. That is the price we have to pay for choosing to serve our living heroes, the OFWs.

There are cases however that, to my mind, may shock our sense of rectitude and propriety. Consider this one Michael Kevin Lallana, who is facing charges of ejaculating on the water bottle of a female co-worker causing sickness on the victim.

Laboratory tests confirmed that the bottle contained semen. Lallana is a married man and there is no evidence of a relationship between the accused and the victim. The accused is charged of six counts of assault by depositing offensive substances. The judge has issued a restraining order preventing the accused from going near the victim within a perimeter of 100 yards.

Another case involves an OFW from Apayao, who took the Gulf Air Flight 154 from Bahrain, and allegedly delivered a baby boy inside the toilet and left the infant boy in the garbage bin. This OFW has been identified and is now facing interrogation by the NBI. She can face criminal prosecution for violating Article 276 of the Revised Penal Code, and may be sentenced, if convicted, to imprisonment of six months only because the baby did not die.

Now the question is: Are these accused still entitled the help of government? Well, the lawyers would admonish us that they are presumed innocent until their guilt is proven beyond reasonable doubt. But, for me, I would not recommend any assistance to Lallana but I would help the OFW from Apayao.

Having been a Labor Attaché in Kuwait for quite a time, I am a living witness to the predicament of our domestic helpers, many of whom are impregnated against their will. They do not deserve to be condemned just like that. While I can not condone abandoning an innocent infant in a garbage can, I look at the big picture and I see the woman as a victim rather than a criminal. Her case and circumstances are more deserving of our compassion and understanding than a man who ejaculates during office hours and deposit his substance on the drinking bottle of an innocent woman.

The bottomline is: Government should be more discerning in the choice of who should get help, especially when resources are being reduced.

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