Barely a week after a large group of overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) in the United Arab Emirates demanded from the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) to relieve its current ambassador over various issues including the misuse of Filipino community funds, another OFW group has spilled more anomalies linked to the beleaguered envoy.

A breakaway group from the Filipino Expatriates Foundation in the UAE (Filex), said to be the largest association of Filipino expats in the tiny oil-rich nation, has now joined the Alliance of Concerned (ACO) OFWs in the UAE in denouncing Ambassador Grace Relucio Princesa over her alleged participation in the grave abuse in mishandling the funds of the foundation.

The disgruntled members of Filex, who has allied with ACO-OFW vowed to come out in the open as soon as the DFA starts its full dress investigation on the alleged anomalies of the foundation’s officials with the alleged protection of Princesa, including anomalous disbursement of millions of pesos for the insurance coverage of its members.

In a letter obtained by ACO-OFW from Filex members and furnished to The Manila Times, the group accused Filex auditor Baltazar Junio Jr. and former UAE ambassador Libran Cabactulan of forging a shady deal and al Dhafrah Insurance Co. of having paid for the insurance coverage of 10,000 members to the amount of 150,000 dirhams (about P2 millions) from the contributions of the Abu Dhabi Filipino Community.

The letter added that with the influence of Cabactulan, another agreement was made with other Filipino community leaders to transfer from Abu Dhabi Filipino Community funds to Filex the amount of 270,000 dirhams (about P4 million) apart from the earlier amount paid for the group insurance coverage. The disgruntled Filex members also said that to this date, there is no official statement of accounts from the Filex officials yet.

What the Filex members could not reconcile is that despite of their continuous pleas to Princesa of their plight, there were no actions made, leading to more suspicions that Princesa has connived with the Filex officials in covering up the said anomaly.

To get away from financial responsibilities, Filex is now being changed to Filipino Expatriates Association, which ACO-OFW has suspected to be the handiwork of Princesa to cool off the issue of the disgraced foundation, adding that the scheme is similar to the style she did when she replaced the Bayanihan Council with the Abu Dhabi Filipino Community.

Only last week ACO-OFW sent a letter complaint against Princesa to DFA Secretary Albert del Rosario to seriously look into the “dubious” creation of the Bayanihan Council and the inefficient system in running the affairs of the Philippine Embassy in the UAE.

They also cited in the letter that most of Princesa’s staff treat Filipinos transacting business in the embassy as mere “typecast OFWs”—typecasts—as if totally unmindful of the fact that there are other nationalities transacting business in the Philippine Embassy.