Recalled envoy to Brazil faces rap for hurting household staff
MANILA, Philippines — Authorities on Monday served a formal complaint on the ambassador to Brazil who was recalled over her abuse of a house helper, Foreign Affairs Secretary Teodoro Locsin Jr. has reported.
Footage from a security camera inside the residence of then Ambassador Marichu Mauro carried by a news outlet in Brazil showed her berating and maltreating her Filipino household staff.
Locsin on October 26 announced that government had told Mauro to return to Manila and explain the incident. On Monday, he said that a complaint, the specifics of which he has yet to disclose, was given to the ex-envoy.
"Charge served on her at 8:25 a.m. today," Locsin wrote on Twitter. "I sent a memo to the president on it...it shouldn't take long."
The DFA chief added that the report of the investigating panel he formed will have to pass through the Board of Foreign Service Administration and finally through him.
President Rodrigo Duterte had given the go signal for the department-led probe on Mauro, which officials had sought to explain that needed his approval being the "appointing authority."
Mauro's ambassador status remains unclear with the DFA saying such is part too of the ongoing investigation.
But workers' groups have called for her dismissal from the diplomatic service and also scored the labor department's being seemingly mum on the issue.
"Secretary Bello, and by extension the entire Duterte administration, must demonstrate that they do not tolerate this kind of behavior towards workers, especially from public servants," said Leody de Guzman of Bukluran ng Manggagawang Pilipino.
Figures from the country's statistics office put the number of overseas Filipino workers at 2.2 million, based on a 2019 survey.
Over 223,000 of them had since been displaced and had returned home as the coronavirus pandemic swept throughout the world affecting industries as a result of lockdowns imposed by nations to curb the spread of the virus.
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