RIYADH, 5 September 2004 — A grieving relative has sought help from top officials in Manila for the speedy repatriation of the remains of Onesima “Oning” Afos Pudol, a sewer who died in Riyadh last month while waiting for her employer to pay her accumulated wages and benefits.
Francis Oca, Pudol’s cousin who also works in Riyadh, had asked the Departments of Foreign Affairs, Department of Labor and the Overseas Workers Welfare Administration (OWWA) to do something because it’s a month now since the woman died.
Pudol died on Aug. 2 of illness without seeing an end to her long fight to get what rightfully belonged to her.
Oca also requested for the approval and release of the amount needed to repatriate the body. The amount, which was estimated to be around SR8,000, could come either from the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) or the OWWA.
He also requested that Manila to officials instruct the Philippine Overseas Labor Office (POLO) and OWWA officers in Riyadh to protect the rights of Pudol, and ensure that her children receive all the benefits that the Saudi labor court has awarded to their mother.
Oca further requested the OWWA to approve a special scholarship grant at least for Pudol’s eldest child, Evangeline, a third-year nursing student. The other child is Ronald, who is taking up a vocational course. “Wherever she is now, I know my cousin is happy to see that we are taking care of her children, as well as her dreams. Let us not fail her,” Oca said in his e-mail to Manila officials.
The Philippine Embassy in Riyadh said in a press statement issued on Thursday that it was “pressing hard for the immediate repatriation” of Pudol’s remains.
“The Embassy has requested the authorities concerned ‘to compel the employer to ship the human remains of the late Pudol as soon as possible,’” said the statement e-mailed by a concerned community leader to Arab News.
The Embassy statement itself lamented that “to date Pudol’s employer has not initiated the repatriation of her remains to the Philippines.”
Pudol, a dressmaker from La Paz, Abra, in the northern Philippines, was in a coma for a week before she died, Arab News learned.
Following the advise of the Philippine Overseas Labor Office (POLO), she filed a case against her employer with the Saudi labor office, complaining that her employer had not paid her salaries for years.
The last time Pudol was in the Philippines for vacation was in 1996, four years after she first came to Saudi Arabia in 1992.
She was allowed to go on vacation to visit her children and relatives only once. That was in 1996.
According to her best friend Sally, all that Pudol wanted to do was work and save for the education of her children.
“When my two kids finish their studies and earn their degrees, I will be the happiest mother, and by then I will be ready to go home,” Sally quoted Pudol as saying.
Everything went well with her until her original employer sold the shop, Sally and Oca said.
Trouble began when the new owner, who became Pudol’s employer, was not as good as the original employer. A local court reportedly ruled in her favor but the employer, instead of complying, went into hiding.
