MANILA, 28 July 2006 — A clamor by Filipino migrant workers for an accounting of their contributions to the Overseas Workers Welfare Administration (OWWA) has finally been heard.
The Senate oversight committee on labor and employment yesterday said it wants to look into the question as diplomats quarreled over whether or not there was enough money for use in the repatriation of Filipino workers who wanted out of Lebanon.
“Isn’t the OWWA supposed to have 7.6-billion pesos?” asked opposition Sen. Jinggoy Estrada, who wondered that President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo has allocated only P150 million for the repatriation effort.
A statement by Arroyo’s officials at the early stage of the Lebanon crisis over the lack of money to repatriate workers has also caused migrant worker groups in the United States, Hong Kong, Saudi Arabia and elsewhere to wonder whether the OWWA fund was intact.
In Hong Kong yesterday, activists protesting in front of the Philippine Consulate General slammed the government for allocating a meager amount to save the mostly women workers in Lebanon but easily releasing 1 billion pesos for an “all-out war” against communist rebels, rather than taking the cheaper path of peace.
Filipino overseas contract workers, known collectively as OFWs, are made to pay $25 each as OWWA membership fee every time they leave for abroad. No amount of objection would do because the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA) will not process the OFW’s employment documents unless the fee is paid.
Estrada, chairman of the Senate oversight committee on labor and employment, said OWWA officials would be made to account for the fund.
“I want to have a full accounting of the OWWA fund,” he said yesterday as he filed a resolution seeking an inquiry.
Overshadowed by Bickering
On Tuesday, the Philippine ambassador to Lebanon, Al Francis Bichara, complained to media that the embassy’s budget had already been depleted in the two weeks of crisis but it has yet to be replenished even as the number of OFWs seeking to be sent home was increasing.
Bichara’s complaint got a hostile retort from the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) home office, which told the embassy officials to just “focus on bringing our people home.”
“Yesterday Ambassador Bichara sent a cable asking for replenishment of funds. The matter is finished. We will send the money. And the media should not be the conduit for such messages because this is an administrative matter,” DFA spokesman Gilbert Asuque said.
Asuque said the matter was “a simple solution of sending money” after the DFA received a request for additional funds for the repatriation of OFWs. He added that the public should not be made to worry over the lack of funds.
Foreign Undersecretary Esteban Conejos Jr. yesterday also rejected criticisms the evacuation of Filipinos lacked funding and said the best evidence against this was the steady movement of evacuees from war-torn Lebanon over the past two weeks.
“If there were really not enough funds, how come there has been a daily movement (of evacuees) from Beirut to Damascus since Saturday? That’s the best evidence we have on the ground,” said Conejos.
The exchange overshadowed the arrival of 55 more OFWs from Lebanon, including one who jumped off a building to escape her employer for refusing to let her go, arrived in Manila last night. OWWA Administrator Marianito Roque said 850 more were lined up to be repatriated, with 700 coming from evacuation centers in Beirut and 150 from Damascus in Syria.
Among those who arrived last night, aside from Teresita Butalan (not Vanessa as earlier reported), the woman who jumped off the building, were two ill domestic helpers identified as Mariel dela Cruz and Romelyn Ferrer, and pregnant workers Lucila Embino and Angelita Orig.
OWWA Money
Roque also denied that the evacuation was being hampered by budget problems. He said the $2 million released by the agency would be enough for 2,000 evacuees and that more funds would be released if needed.
According to Conejos, while there were more than 30,000 OFWs in Lebanon, only less than 3,000 were covered by the DFA’s forced evacuation order. These are the workers in southern Lebanon, where the fighting between Israeli forces and the Hezbollah was going on.
Roque assured OWWA members that all fund disbursement could be accounted for and have been spent to pay the transportation expenses and food of the stranded OFWs in Damascus, Syria and those in the relocation sites in Beirut. He was also willing to be investigated to really determine if there were irregularities committed within OWWA.
“These are all documented and all accounted for,” he said. (With reports from Inquirer News Service & Agencies)
