JEDDAH, 6 June 2005 — The Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) has urged Migrante International to check its fact first, taking strong exceptions to the group’s claims that the Philippine government was not taking care of Filipino workers overseas.
“While we commend Migrante’s apparent zeal and fervor in trying to work for the welfare and protection of our OFWs, it is unfathomable for Migrante to claim that our government has neglected our overseas workers,” Undersecretary Jose S. Brillantes, head of the department’s Migrant Workers’ Affairs office, said in a press statement.
Brillantes was responding to a recent report by Migrante saying that of 5,168 OFWs currently in jail in 56 countries — including 12 in death row — for various offenses that range from contract violations to murder, 1,115 were not assisted by Philippine government officials abroad.
“As a matter of fact, the protection of our OFWs is one of three main pillars of Philippine foreign policy.
"Witness what government did to free former hostages Angelo de la Cruz and Angelito Nayan, and what it continues to do in its sustained efforts to spare the life of Robert Tarongoy to make sure that he returns safely to his family in the Philippines,” he added.
He said that the government continues to exert extra efforts to extend protection to Filipinos who run into problems with their employers and even those who run afoul of the law and are in jail, by extending — as a matter of routine — legal assistance to them, all at government expense.
He pointed out that the Philippines is viewed by many countries and by the International Labor Organization as a model in terms of affording protection and ensuring the well-being of its overseas workers.
Brillantes also said Migrante got it all wrong in pushing for the government to seek clemency from the Saudi government to save the life of Reynaldo Cortez, a Filipino worker who was recently meted capital punishment by a Saudi court for killing a Pakistani taxi driver who made sexual advances on him.
“The DFA is not ready to give up on his case,” stressed Brillantes, who said what Migrante wants “is tantamount to making him (Cortez) admit to the crime so that clemency could be sought...”
“(U)nder the operation of the law in the Middle East, clemency will be sought only as a last recourse and only after all other legal remedies have been availed of by the Philippine government and have failed,” he explained.
“The Cortez case is still in its preliminary appeal stage and government will exhaust all legal remedies to get him out of death row,” Brillantes added.
He said that while the government is trying to convince the family of the victim to accept “blood money,” the services of a competent lawyer has also been contracted to handle the appeal of Cortez.
“Whether he is guilty or not, we will ensure that he is fully accorded due process and that his rights are fully protected,” Brillantes declared.
“Migrante should verify its data and information before making any claims,” he said.
“Whoever is feeding Migrante those information is doing a disservice not only to that organization but also to our Philippine public, particularly the families of our hundreds of thousands of our workers in the Middle East.”
Brillantes also told Migrante that the legal procedures in the Philippines are not necessarily as those of other countries, especially those in the Middle East where the Shariah law is observed.
“It is not infrequent for government to hire the services of Shariah law experts in the Middle East in an effort to afford the appropriate legal protection to our workers and to ensure that their basic rights are observed under a legal system unfamiliar to us and to them,” he said.
