MANILA, 20 February 2007 — The Department of Foreign Affairs through the Philippine Embassy in Riyadh is making sure that a Riyadh hospital will not touch the body of an overseas Filipino worker in a coma there, without the express permission of the OFW’s family in Cavite.

Philippine Ambassador to Saudi Arabia Antonio Villamor called abs-cbnNEWS.com to personally give this assurance since there is talk that the hospital where OFW Tony Oralde is in, the Riyadh Care Hospital, wants to harvest the organs of the brain dead Oralde.

“We are making sure they will not do that while the guy is still breathing or without the consent of the family,” Villamor said.

Villamor also called to dispel persistent rumors that the Philippine Embassy in Riyadh was indifferent toward the case of Oralde. In fact, he said two of his staff, Consul Romulo Victor Israel and Labor Attache Rey Banda, went to the hospital on Feb. 9, the day after Oralde was reportedly beaten up and left for dead.

In fact, Joseph Henry Espiritu, a Filipino community leader in Riyadh, said in an e-mail: “In fairness to the Philippine Embassy and even POLO (Philippine Overseas Labor Office), they have visited Tony more than four times. And they always follow-up with the authorities here in order to catch the suspects and also what benefits Tony can receive.”

“We can understand if there is a call for justice from our fellowmen but commenting that the embassy or POLO did nothing is an uncalled-for criticism,” Espiritu added.

Espiritu also said their were e-mails being spread that Oralde had passed away “and from there you can see some senders are just tagging on to the issue or know nothing about it. But that is not true.” Different sources from the Filipino community in Riyadh said Oralde was beaten up Feb. 8 in a parking lot outside his place of work, Chicken Plus.

Villamor clarified that it was not a drive-through restaurant but one which had a curb side service wherein waiters would approach the cars parked at the curb outside the Chicken Plus restaurant.

Quoting a witness, Villamor said Oralde was making sure that the four who ordered chicken from him at about 11:30 that night would pay for their order but they instead forced him to board their vehicle and literally dropped him off after severely beating him on the head.

Roland Blanco, a fellow OFW in Riyadh, said the witness, a Lebanese, was also the one who called an ambulance. However, efforts to revive Oralde were useless since he was already brain dead.

Blanco said Oralde had just renewed his contract. He was not going to do so but since he had borrowed money from another OFW before going on vacation, he did so.

Meanwhile, Espiritu said the Filipino community in Riyadh is concerned about a group which has taken up a collection allegedly on behalf of Oralde.

“Do they even have the approval of the victim’s family?” Espiritu said it was this same group that first suggested that Oralde’s organs be harvested to pay for his hospital bills.

He said Riyadh Care hospital right now is angry because they have been portrayed as unacceptable because of this. “In fairness to Riyadh Care, they doing their best to save Tony,” Espiritu said.