Lessons from Joanna Demafelis

We continue from our last column, Lessons from Kuwait, where we defined three learning points that could be gleaned from the recent reported deaths of Filipino workers in Kuwait. Let’s discuss each one at more depth.

On the first, on being more careful where to send out countrymen for jobs abroad, the Philippine government continues to initiate discussions with countries that are among the biggest harbors of Filipino migrant workers.

Knowing how tedious and time-consuming the process by which these laws can be crafted and passed, there has been little progress in many of the dialogues, especially with “closed” cultures of many Middle East countries.

Here is an area that the Philippine government should focus on, and to come up with plans that would proactively prevent unfortunate incidents like that which happened to 29-year-old Joanna Demafelis, who was found dead and stored in a freezer for over a year.

Banning all Filipinos to work in Kuwait is, of course, an option, but one that should not wisely be pursued because rightly, there are more of our countrymen who are gainfully employed in the Gulf state.

The answer, therefore, lies in ensuring that prospective employers have passed improved criteria to prevent abuses like what Demafelis suffered even before she was killed.

Filipinas, most abused

We must give more attention to our Filipina workers who leave for abroad to work as domestic helpers. A quick review of abuses over the last decades point to our women who work as house helps being the most abused, and with many not having better recourse to air their grievances.

Many of them go through the current safety nets that our government processing systems have set up, but these are obviously not enough to protect them from abuses.

They may have legitimate contracts, but if these are not followed to the letter, and worse, if the worker is barred from reporting the aggressions to the proper authorities and even to friends and family, tragedies like what happened to Demafelis could be repeated.

The Philippine government should really tighten up on its recruitment processes for domestic job openings, especially in households of Chinese and Middle Easterners, given the list of abuses over the last half century.

Of the 10 million-plus Filipino workers currently with jobs abroad, the latest statistics show that women far outnumber men. Worse, they are subjected to the worst abuses not just emotional and physical torture, but even death.

Time to act

We have heard too many stories of Filipinas suffering from second degree burns that an irate employer inflicts, or the provision of sleeping quarters far worse than the pet dog’s, or long work hours with no proper compensation.

This is where our second lesson comes in. It’s time for our government to pay more attention to responding to the needs of our Filipino workers abroad.

The overseas worker welfare officer, Maria Sarah Concepcion, assigned to the Demafelis case was relieved from work for failing to respond to the problem. Labor Secretary Silvestre Bello III is witch-hunting to find others to blame, but shouldn’t he have done more than fire people under his department?

It is common knowledge how understaffed most overseas government offices dealing with migrant workers’ concerns are. This does not excuse reported staffers’ short tempers when dealing with complaints. Really, we need to put in more people who are qualified to protect our overseas workers.

Take the case of Filipinos who have been sitting it out in our overseas government offices, waiting to be repatriated for one reason or another. Most of them have had their contracts violated by the employer, or abused.

Did it need a President to intervene by asking Philippine Airlines to bring them back home? Is there no fail-safe procedure that will ensure that any overseas worker that needs to go back home after unjustly suffering a failed contract will have the means to do so?

Not only are each and every contract worker required to pay fees to the government to be able to leave for a job abroad, but they have collectively, through their continued remittances, saved the country and its more than 100 million citizens from economic disaster.

It’s not too late for the government to seriously look at ensuring the safety of our OFWs and keep their dignity intact, not just speeding up the process of recruitment and deployment.

More safety mechanisms

We need smarter OFWs who will no longer stay silent to indiscriminate acts of human right transgressions. Life is already tough, but life working abroad is even tougher.

The diaspora of working Filipinos in far-flung corners of the world will continue for a long time, and it is delusional to think that we can bring them all back and give them jobs here at home.

There is a big chance, that with enough brainstorming, incidents that lead to oppression can be avoided, especially one like Demafelis’ case where her death was only unearthed after more than a year.

It’s not just a question of how well each departing Filipino worker knows the procedures of what to do when faced with contract violations, but also establishing individual safety mechanisms that will enable them to use the safety nets when confronted with danger.

Let’s get tougher and wiser so that our overseas working Filipinos become tougher and wiser too.

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Should you wish to share any insights, write me at Link Edge, 25th Floor, 139 Corporate Center, Valero Street, Salcedo Village, 1227 Makati City. Or e-mail me at [email protected]. For a compilation of previous articles, visit www.BizlinksPhilippines.net.