JEDDAH, 10 August 2007 — A company here has been hiring workers from the Philippines on visit visas to work in its chain of supermarkets in the Kingdom, the Philippine Consulate has announced.

Consulate officials said they were studying the possibility of lodging a complaint with the proper Saudi office after the company, Sawary Marketing and Development Group, left seven of the illegally hired workers to fend for themselves without securing exit visas for them.

Consul General Pendosina N. Lomondot also warned jobseekers in the Philippines against accepting job offers in Saudi Arabia using visit visas.

“Unless you are looking for trouble, don’t attempt to come to work in Saudi Arabia without a work visa,” he said.

The seven workers sought help from the consulate this week when their employer gave them plane tickets and their passports without securing exit visas for them, after employing them without residency/work permits (iqamas).

Vicky Salian, head of the consulate’s Assistance to Nationals Section, said Sawary was trying to evade responsibility by returning the passports of the seven workers without exit visas.

“Sawary’s management is in a bind because if it goes to the Passport Department to secure exit visas for these workers, its practice of employing workers without work permits would be exposed,” said another consulate official investigating the case.

Repeated phone calls by Arab News to the Sawary management went unanswered.

Documents obtained from the consulate, including the affidavits filed by the seven workers, showed that they were among nine Filipinos who arrived in Jeddah on Aug. 18, 2006. One of them managed to go home last May, while one has opted to stay with the company.

They said they had asked their company to send them home primarily out of fear of being arrested for working in the Kingdom illegally.

“We were duped into coming here to work illegally. Our company promised to provide us work visas but until now we have not been given any,” said Jeffrey T. Ponce, a 30-year-old who worked as merchandiser at the Sawary Supermarket’s main store on Sary Street.

“For almost a year now, we have been living in fear, scared of getting arrested because we don’t have work visas,” said the father of four who is from Angeles in Pampanga.

Raffy L. Flores, 30, of Angat, Bulacan, said their fears and homesickness have been aggravated by their cramped accommodation and meager food allowance.

“Sabi ng mga kaibigan namin na mas-malawak pa ang mga selda dito kaysa sa aming accommodation (Our friends tease us that prison cells in the Kingdom are bigger than our accommodation),” he said.

Each of the six were being paid SR938 ($250 or about 11,250 pesos) a month, including a food allowance.

Excessive Placement Fee

As narrated by the seven in the interview and in their complaint, they were made to pay 35,000 pesos (about $800) each in addition to 2,825 pesos for medical examination and 2,500 pesos for training to the agency that recruited them: Alba International Placement Service.

The workers were given receipts hand-written on plain paper for the P35,000 fee, a practice of recruitment agencies to skirt the government-imposed limit on placement fees.

The workers said the processing of their application was so quick that they were all of a sudden told to get ready for their flight on Aug. 18, 2006, even though they did not go through a PDOS, or Pre-Departure Orientation Seminar, as required by the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA).

“Noong tinanong namin ang tungkol sa PDOS, sabi ng agency sayang lang daw ang oras. Binabayaran na lang daw (When we asked about the PDOS, we were told by the agency that it was a waste of time. They said we’ll just pay),” said Robert Tornedo, 32, who gave up his job as a high school teacher in Aringay, La Union, to work overseas.

Not Permitted to Work

They said they were told to assemble at the airport hours before their flight, during which a woman named Emy, who introduced herself as the vice president of Alba International, met them.

During the briefing, they discovered that their visas issued by the Saudi Arabian Embassy were stamped “not permitted to work” and were valid for only one month, but they were told by Emy not to worry because their visas would be renewed every three months in Jeddah.

“We reluctantly agreed to go because Emy told us that we would be sued if we withdraw and that we won’t get any refund for what we paid,” said Ponce.

Apart from their passports and plane tickets, Emy gave them a letter to show to the Immigration counter saying they were “invited by the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia under a visit visa.”

“This is also to certify that all the names mentioned above will be under our sponsorship and we guarantee their stay and safety while in the Kingdom. All travel expenses incurred during travel to and from the Kingdom will be credit to our account.

“We are issuing this guarantee letter to facilitate departure from Manila,” said the letter bearing the name Reda Hussein Basha, president of Sawary Marketing & Development Group.

Other Victims Urged to Come Out

Consul General Lomondot said the seven were undoubtedly victims of illegal recruitment in violation of the laws of both Saudi Arabia and the Philippines.

“We are still gathering information that this is not an isolated case because we have received information that there are other Filipinos who have been hired to work here without work visas,” he said.

He also urged others, who are in similar predicament, to come out and report to the consulate or to the Philippine Embassy in the case of those working in Riyadh or the Eastern Province.

“Come out before you get caught. If you are afraid, seek help from community leaders that you know so that they can bring your case to the consulate or embassy,” said Lomondot.

According to the seven, they learned from regular employees of Sawary that their group was the second to be hired by Sawary. The first group of 33 Filipinos demanded to be repatriated also because they were not provided legal working status. They too complained of poor accommodation.

A third group of 23 arrived in Jeddah in March but they were sent home in May as their visit visas were about to expire.

All but three of those in the third group were sent home when one of them reportedly sought help from a police general about the failure of the company to provide work visas. Flores said that because of the early exit of the third group, he and his colleagues were restrained from leaving when they asked to be repatriated in June.

After the group sought help from the Philippine Overseas Labor Office, their employer grudgingly agreed to provide them plane tickets on Aug. 6. At the airport, a Sawary staff came and tried to facilitate their exit but they were stopped at the immigration counter due to lack of an exit visa. “The Sawary representative just left us at the airport and we were forced again to commute. When we returned to the office, our employer refused to talk to us,” said one of the seven.

Lomondot said the case of the seven should serve as a strong warning against others not to fall prey to similar recruitment schemes offering visit visas. “Please remember that a visitor’s visa in Saudi Arabia cannot be converted to a work visa,” he said.