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Senate President Manny Villar has pledged to bring home two
distressed overseas Filipino workers stranded in Riyadh. It was a
promise he made to two Cebuanos from Talamban, Cebu City.
Randy and Percival Minoza, both from this
barangay in Cebu City, plead with Villar to help them on behalf of
their wives Jovy and Chrisline who want to be repatriated to the
country.
Both women complained of harsh working
conditions in Riyadh.
Villar was guest of honor and speaker at the
University of the Visayas’ (UV) first academic convocation for
school year 2008 to 2009 at the Inday Pining Teatro when he was
approached by the distraught husbands.
They had already sought the help of the
Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA), but decided to seek out Villar
after he initiated an OFW helpline for distressed OFWs.
Villar vowed to extend help to the
distressed OFWs, in coordination with their families and the DFA, to
enable them to be reunited with their loved ones in Cebu.
Harsh conditions faced by OFWs have pushed
Villar to actively press for the application of the “no-fault
insurance system” for OFWs, a form of indemnity plan in which
anybody injured in an accident or misfortune receives direct payment
from the company that has insured them, eliminating the need for
victims to establish another’s liability or fault through a civil
case.
In his speech at the UV convocation,
Villar stressed the need to change the Filipino mindset from being
an employee to becoming an entrepreneur to propel the economy. This
way, Villar said Filipinos would find no need to go abroad for jobs.
A successful entrepreneur before he
entered politics, the Nacionalista Party president recounted how he
managed to rise from poverty and selling shrimps in the wet market
to become one of Asia’s biggest real estate developers.
“We must look for our innate talents and
abilities and use them to find our niche,” Villar told UV students
and academe members.
“I tell those who approach me and say
they have no money to start a business that they should not fear
because in the first place, walang mawawala sa kanila [they won’t
lose anything],” he said.
Villar insisted being an entrepreneur is not
only challenging, but enjoyable. “It feels good to be independent,
to be the captain of the ship, to steer one’s course and achieve
according to one’s aspirations in one’s own country,” he said
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