"Matter of life and death."
Many Overseas Filipinos Workers are in this situation, many for months, even years. We agree that the sooner our OFWs are rescued from their life-threatening situation, the better. However, the rescue operation has to be well-planned and coordinated with local and global partners to genuinely rescue and protect our people.
Many distressed Filipinos or their families have sought the help of government offices here or abroad. Sadly, very few cases are responded to promptly and appropriately, if at all. Family members report having being unattended to or asked to return again and again. Many report having been scolded or shouted at by personnel of these offices. Many resort, instead, to asking assistance from NGOs with sterling record of migrant support rather than government channels.
Those genuinely concerned and who have spent long years of genuine advocacy and support for our migrants have rescued and continue to rescue many distressed overseas Filipinos through unpublicized, well-planned operations, coordinated locally and abroad, involving multi-sectoral partners (from government, civil society, the academe, the media, and others) in the Philippines and in the country where the distressed Filipinos work or reside. Once they hear and confirm the cry for rescue, coordinated steps are taken with a network of local and global partners.
As a concrete example, when cases are brought to the Center for Migrant Advocacy (CMA), they take the following multiple steps:
CMA informs their local and global contacts in government and civil society about the plight of the distressed Filipino migrant, sharing crucial data such as the complainant's full name, residence and work address, passport copy, work contract, local recruitment agency and employer, plus details and evidence related to the urgent need for rescue.
CMA and partners maintain constant, continuing communication among themselves and with the victim especially. Many employers disallow, confiscate, or cut off any communication device or network -the critical lifeline of the distressed Filipino. When this happens, contact with friends and relatives who are able to send updates about the distressed Filipino is just as imperative.
The rescue operation takes time to plan, coordinate, and execute with certain officials and personnel of government agencies and other partners in the Philippines and abroad and is always executed with the presence, assistance, and cooperation of the nationals of the country involved, from the police, the NGOs, and others. The rescue plan involves details about repatriation as well, including the return trip schedule of the distressed Filipino, communication with family back home, etc.
If the recent Kuwaiti rescue attempt was truly intended to save our distressed Filipinos, the rescuers should have already known these multiple steps and network of partnership and support crucial for successful rescue.
However, if you have people who do not have the intelligence, the skills, the compassion, and the genuine motive for rescue, then you have that recent fiasco brought to you by no less than Duterte's publicity-hungry, fake news team and company.
Our people, here and abroad, deserve better, genuine, and intelligent public service and assistance!
Cayetano, Mocha Uson, and all others who approved, conceived, and executed that irresponsible, brainless rescue plan deserve to be fired immediately for compromising our Filipinos in Kuwait (the domestic helpers and other Filipinos, the innocent embassy staff forced to join or assist them), for recklessly violating Kuwaiti sovereignty, for misspending public funds for negligent action, for not knowing how to do their job, for their attempt to grab credit for work that should have been left instead to the truly qualified and knowledgeable.