Engineers Gerardo B. Almonte, 48, from Taguig City and 29-year-old Dexter Padaoan from Baguio City were accompanied by a representative from the Philippine Overseas Labor Office in the Eastern Region (POLO-ERO) in filing their complaint.

“Both are mechanical engineers who started working for their company, a manpower supplier, in Dammam in August 2008,” a POLO-ERO official told Arab News on Monday.

A month before the completion of their two-year contract, the two engineers filed their resignation letters with their employer, saying that they wanted to go home.

The duo claimed that their employer refused to grant them exit visa clearance and ESB, among others. This prompted them to seek assistance from the non-governmental organization Migrante in Alkhobar.

“Our employer Mohammed Al-Haider and the POLO representative failed to attend our first hearing,” the two OFWs wrote in a letter to Migrante on Sunday. “The employer did not show up again for our second hearing, although a POLO representative attended. However, no hearing took place.”

On the same day, the Saudi labor judge issued a subpoena asking police to ensure the employer’s attendance for the next hearing.

“But upon receiving the subpoena, the employer threatened them. Instead of going home, he said they would be sent to jail instead if they pursue the case against him,” Migrante welfare officer Marcial Abay said in an e-mail to Arab News.

Abay claimed that the demands of the two OFWs are valid since they have completed their contracts and are in accordance with the provisions of Saudi labor law.

John Leonard Monterona, Migrante Middle East coordinator, said that he would talk to Philippine Labor Secretary Rosalinda Baldoz and request approval to hire a lawyer for the two OFWs.

He claimed that POLO officials said that although they had been attending hearings involving OFWs, there was no full-time lawyer who could fight all cases because of a lack of funds. “We urge President Benigno Simeon ‘Noynoy’ C. Aquino to reconsider his decision to cut the legal assistance fund (LAF) for Filipino migrant workers so that OFWs like Almonte and Padaoan can take advantage of lawyers to defend themselves,” Monterona said.

The Aquino administration cut the LAF from 50 million Philippine pesos in 2010 to only 27 million for 2011 in its budget for the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA).

Under the Migrant Workers and Overseas Filipinos Act of 1995, the budget allocation for the LAF is 100 million pesos.