JEDDAH, 26 August — The controversy involving a Saudi national barred from entering the Philippines because of serious allegations of harassment and abuse made against him at home by his Filipino maid took a new turn yesterday when the Philippine Ambassador to the Kingdom, Rafael Seguis, contacted Arab News.
The Saudi national has filed a complaint against the Philippine Embassy in Riyadh because he was refused entry to the country when he traveled there on business to recruit workers for his commercial establishment.
His blacklisting was done after the advice of the embassy in Riyadh was sought, and the maid had listed a catalogue of serious allegations against her Saudi employer.
With the drama becoming a cause celebre for those debating the treatment of immigrant labor in the Kingdom, the ambassador categorically stated that he would “never apologize to [the Saudi] or pay a single halala” for having recommended that he be blacklisted by the Bureau of Immigration and Deportation in Manila.
The Saudi had previously demanded that the embassy issue an official apology and pay compensation for the inconvenience and distress he was caused by his temporary incarceration in the Philippines.
“The Philippine government has the supreme right to exclude any alien from entering the country,” was the ambassador’s response.
It has also been disclosed that the embassy had arranged a meeting between the Saudi employer and his maid in the presence of embassy officials.
The aim was to try to reach some common ground, but the meeting soon degenerated into a violent argument with claims meeting counter-claims and in the end the two sides finding themselves further apart than ever.
The ambassador’s uncorroborated claims are numerous and often extremely serious, including that the employer “exploited” the maid and also in other ways physically hurt her. The maid says that her Saudi sponsor also refused to pay her a salary for seven months.
The Saudi national’s version of events is totally different. He says that the maid had done nothing but cry since she arrived in the Kingdom, that she is homesick and so is merely looking for an excuse to return to her home country.
She had run away from his home a number of times, he claims, and on each occasion he made a report to the police. The maid had, he further alleges, given a number of undertakings not to repeat this offense, but she subsequently collaborated with one of her compatriots also living in the Kingdom and it was he who eventually urged her to “make a run for it” by seeking sanctuary at the Philippine Embassy.
During the later confrontation between the two in the presence of embassy officials, the maid herself strongly repeated the accusations of wrongdoing, according to the ambassador. “However, the employer just got angry and said she was a liar,” the ambassador recalls.
The ambassador disclosed that the maid at the center of the controversy is 19 years old, is single and is a devout Muslim. She comes from the southern Philippines and was recruited in Manila by the sponsor about whom she has filed the complaint.
“After her arrival, he adamantly refused to pay her salary, saying that he had in effect already paid the amount through some personal items bought for her, a claim she refutes,” the ambassador said.
“Finally, at the interview we arranged he angrily brushed off the maid’s complaints and boasted that he would never allow her to leave the Kingdom,” he continued.
He further claims that the Labor Office has evidence that the Saudi national has resorted to “illegal transactions” in his recruitment of workers from Manila. However, the Labor Office itself has not confirmed that this is in fact the case.
“It is against this background that the embassy recommended the Saudi’s blacklisting at the Immigration Office in Manila,” Ambassador Seguis explained.
