JEDDAH, 6 March 2005 — Filipino Community leaders here yesterday complained that the deadline for submission of nominations for the 2005 Bagong Bayani Awards is too close, and the labor office said it was recommending an extension.
Labor Attaché Bulyok Nilong said he will send a formal request to Manila to give overseas Filipinos more time to submit their nominations.
“The time frame is too short. If we are truly searching for a bagong bayani (new hero), the deadline must be extended,” Rudy Carillo, former chairman of OFW Cooperative Council, told Arab News.
Under the present schedule, nominations (with all the requirements) for this year’s awardees must reach the Philippine Overseas Labor Office (POLO) abroad or the Bagong Bayani Foundation, Inc. (BBFI) in Manila on or before March 15.
Juliet Roa, president of Ilonggo group CISA, said the March 15 deadline is “unfair” for those working outside Jeddah or Riyadh. The POLO has offices only at the Philippine Embassy in Riyadh and the consulate in Jeddah.
“How could they possibly select the best choices in such a very short period?” she said.
Nonoy Sarmiento of the Bag-ong Bicol Saro nin Jeddah lamented that the BBFI seems to have not gotten any clue from requests for extension of the deadline every year.
“The time frame is unbelievable. We are not supermen who could leap through tall buildings and read minds,” he said.
Sarmiento said not a few awardees have been ridiculed apparently because the BBFI had fewer nominees to choose from.
Among those whose awards from BBFI have been questioned formally and informally were some Filipinos working in the Kingdom.
In 1999 when one engineer based in Jeddah challenged the manner in which some winners were selected, the BBFI claimed that their choice depended on who got endorsed by the labor attachés abroad. One of the 1998 winners, however, bragged to Arab News that in submitting nominations, it was the presentation rather than substance that mattered most.
Still, community members say the Bagong Bayani Awards has its good purpose and that the labor attachés in the Kingdom should do their best to restore the credibility of the program by eschewing whatever hanky-panky their predecessors may have done.
Meanwhile, consulate personnel urged those who know of Filipinos who continue to render service to compatriots unselfishly to nominate them to the BBFI. “We have plenty of compatriots in the work place who continue to silently live heroically and they are the ones who feel embarrassed to nominate themselves. If you know of such persons, nominate them,” said one official.