MANILA, 7 September 2006 — Plans are being formalized to send social welfare workers to Lebanon amid fears of an increase in the number of Overseas Filipino Workers (OFWs) being abused by their employers, an official of the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) said yesterday.
Esteban Conejos, undersecretary for migrant worker affairs, said the government is anticipating a rise in abuse cases as employers traumatized by Israeli bombings in Lebanon during the past two months may vent their ire on their workers.
Of more than 30,000 Filipino workers in Lebanon, only about 11,000 Filipino, including some family members, have fled to the Philippines since the start of the Israeli-Hezbollah war in July, the DFA has reported.
“We, of course, hope it would not happen but ... the Lebanese employers, just like our OFWs, were subjected to the trauma of war,” Conejos said during a budget hearing at the House of Representatives.
Conejos said sending out the social workers was part of the government’s plan while a cease-fire is in effect between Israel and the Hezbollah.He said the employers of OFWs will hopefully remain unaffected by the bombing that went on, “but we anticipate that some of them might take out their frustrations and anger caused by war stress on our OFWs. We might have a rising case of maltreatment.”
Rep. Mario Aguja also asked Conejos if the DFA was planning to send psychologists and social workers to Lebanon to aid the social workers in addressing the impending problem.
“Given the condition that you have pictured to us, don’t you think that it’s high time that we should fill out social workers and psychologists in that area? Because as far as I know, we’ve not posted any social worker in Lebanon,” he said.
Conejos agreed, saying that in fact, they intend to form “expanded legal, consular” teams to include social workers, labor attachés, and welfare officers from the Overseas Workers Welfare Administration (OWWA).
Aside from possible cases of maltreatment and detention of Filipino workers, Conejos said they also expected other labor-related problems as a result of the war, especially in the economy of Lebanon.
“Why do I say this Mr. Chairman? The Lebanese economy has been devastated by war so therefore, we anticipated that Lebanese employers might have difficulty providing for the salaries (and benefits) of our OFWs,” Conejos pointed out.
Thus, Conejos said it was important that they should look at how far the conflict has impaired the ability of Lebanese employers to provide labor benefits to Filipino workers.
Conejos said another post-scenario plan that they were looking at was how to have an inventory of the Filipino workers in Lebanon.
“We’d like to know where they are now. We’d like to account where they are and what their conditions are,” he said.
Conejos said these two problems - the inventory and welfare of OFWs - were “even more daunting” than the task of evacuation.
He said evacuation was a simple operation while the other was a “continuing problem.”
