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Workers stranded at the Philippine Consulate in Jeddah have asked
Philippine officials to find a diplomatic solution and get them
repatriated.
In a report posted at the online edition of Arab
News, many of the OFWs have already shaved their heads and have put
up a mock coffin to dramatize their demand.
Painted in black color on the coffin were the
words, “The future of our families lies on this coffin. Send us
home, not to jail!”
Migrante, a migrant workers alliance that
operates a chapter in Saudi Arabia, said the Philippine Embassy in
Riyadh and Consulate in Jeddah has to find creative solutions,
rather than allow the stranded OFWs to go through normal processes.
In a press statement, A.M. Ociones, chairman of
Migrante KSA, said: “The ‘legal deportation process’ is a
sham, because it endangers our compatriots who left their employers
due to various cases of abuse, maltreatment and contract
violations.”
The Philippine Embassy had opted for voluntary
repatriation, but as of February 20, there were very few takers. The
total number of workers seeking urgent repatriation was placed at
198, with more than 70 staying inside the consulate compound.
Most of the workers fled their employers in the
Eastern Province and Riyadh either because of maltreatment,
nonpayment of their wages, and other abuses and violations of their
contract.
Consulate officials acknowledged the workers
were lured by a syndicate of “fixers” to go to Jeddah where they
can be repatriated via the “backdoor” for a fee. The workers
were made to gather under the Kandarah Bridge and wait for
immigration officials to pick them up and deport them.
The stranded workers have charged immigration
officials ignored them because they did not pass through the
“proper channels.”
Consul General Ezzedin Tago had explained to the
workers that the consulate can help them only if they pass through
the legal process in which the worker is made to identify his
employer, and the consulate or immigration officials would notify
the employer and ask if they want to provide an exit visa for the
worker.
Fernando Francisco, one of the leaders of the
stranded, said he and his colleagues softened up last week after
consulate officials promised that they won’t be placed in danger.
But the group started backing out when some of
the 54 women and 24 men who were picked up by the Immigration Police
through the so-called due process on February 10 were returned to
their employers.
Migrante reported that one man was confirmed
“returned” to his employer and about 20 were told that they
would also be sent back to their employers. Some 13 men were
transferred to the Deportation Facility in Riyadh in handcuffs and
were dumped inside a cell with at least 100 other men of different
nationalities.
“This is not what has been promised us when
they [consulate officials] were convincing us to sign up for due
process,” Ociones quoted one of the 13 men as saying.
Consul Jose Jacob confirmed that some of the
workers were sent back to Riyadh. Jacob said the consulate has the
Philippine Embassy in Riyadh to intervene. “We wanted to
repatriate them as much as we can but the problem is we don’t have
control of the process,” he said.
Jacob rejected suggestions that the consulate
help the workers exit via the so-called backdoor, saying “We will
not secure their repatriation through fraudulent means. They came
here as workers, they will be repatriated as workers.”
The head of the Philippine Overseas Labor Office
in Riyadh, Labor Attaché Resty de la Fuente, said he immediately
went to see the workers when they arrived at the Riyadh deportation
area on Monday night.
“We will take care of them and we will
continue assisting them. They are okay inside and we just hope
everything will go smoothly so that they will be repatriated
soon,” de la Fuente remarked, assuring that the Philippine Embassy
is doing its best to solve the crisis.
Migrante insisted that “the government
[should] opt for the more arduous diplomatic or
government-to-government solution.”
The workers said if the consulate had managed to
send home 925 overstayers and stranded workers last year, there’s
no reason it could to do it again with the smaller number this time.
Last year, most of the workers who were
repatriated almost single-handedly by then-Consul General Pendosina
N. Lomondot also came from Riyadh and the Eastern Province.
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