The pains and sufferings of our female OFWs
The Filipino migrant workers are celebrating all over the world, on that latest Supreme Court decision favoring OFWs, and declaring as unconstitutional that provision of RA 10022, which limits to three months the back wages that an illegally dismissed OFWs are supposed to receive. That case involving an OFW in Taiwan, who was illegally dismissed by her employer, and who won her case before the Supreme Court, in its decision on August 5, 2014, ( G R 170139 ) has triggered a lot of discussions among our migrant workers abroad. I have received hundreds of likes in my Facebook account and as many number of emails expressing their elation at the column we wrote, under this by-line. On the other hand, that decision has also put in focus once more the many travails that confront our migrant workers.
In one case (GR 108284, Sigma Personnel) decided by the High Court through the mighty pen of Justice Isagani Cruz, it was held: "The Court is not unaware of the many abuses suffered by our overseas workers in foreign lands, where they have ventured, usually with heavy hearts, in pursuance of a more fulfilling future. Breach of contract, maltreatment, rape, insufficient nourishment, sub-human lodgings, insults, and other forms of debasement are only few of the inhumane acts to which they are subjected by their foreign employers, who probably feel they can do as they please in their own country." I know the meaning of these words, I have seen with my own eyes the pains and sufferings of our OFWs, especially those who have dirty, difficult, dangerous, degrading, and deceptive jobs.
Justice Cruz told of the story of Susan Sumatre "who was full of hopes and anticipation when she enplaned for a foreign land to work as a domestic. Before her spread the promise of a new life, with all the enticements of a future bright with the prospect of prosperity and even happiness. But all these fled in a cruel twinkling. Hardly two weeks after she left, she was back in the country, broken of body and mind, and with nothing but bitter memories of her misadventure. Talk of Flor Contemplacion, Delia Maga, and Sarah Balabagan.I have seen them diseased, disabled devastated, and dead. I have seen them in prisons, in hospitals and in morgues. I have seen them thrown into the desert after having been raped, maimed, and murdered. I have seen them broken emotionally and deranged mentally.
Justice Cruz stressed: "The plight of Susan Sumatre illustrates only too starkly the perils that many of our womenfolk have to hazard and endure at the hands of foreign employers who find them easy and defenseless prey. It is hoped that the time will come when they will not have to seek their future abroad on their quest for a better life, finding posterity and peace in our own land and in the bosom of their family and friends." It is unfortunate however that our government's tacit policy is to market our migrant workers, including female OFWs to employers, recruiters, and to middlemen and brokers who make a lot of money sending our women to work as DH's abroad. How many hundreds of thousands of Filipino homes and families are broken because of unabated deployment of women workers.
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