138 Filipino workers, 38 kids repatriated from Saudi

MANILA, Philippines -- It had been 10 years ago since Norma Namla left Cotabato City and braved the Middle East to clean a stranger's house for little pay.

On her return, four little ones tagged along, all of whom she had during her troublesome decade in a foreign land.

Namla was among several Filipino mothers from Jeddah, Saudi Arabia who arrived Wednesday afternoon after they were granted amnesty for overstaying in the country.

With her were her two sons, aged 6 and 5, and two daughters, aged 4 and 1, all worn out by the long ride but kept awake by the surrounding fuss over their homecoming.

“Life is very hard there. I do not intend to go back there ... We'll just stay here and I'll send my kids to school,” Namla said in Filipino while struggling to pacify her youngest child with her Filipino husband, also working in Saudi.

A domestic helper in her first seven months until she was forced to leave for lack of pay, the 38-year-old was among 100 female migrant workers and 38 children flown home on Wednesday after they availed of an amnesty the Saudi government offered for two months until the end of May.

Migrant Workers' Affairs Undersecretary Esteban Conejos Jr. explained that Wednesday’s batch of Overseas Filipino Workers (OFWs) were able to come home after the Saudi government granted them amnesty even while the two-month program was intended only for Filipino Muslims who had stayed beyond their time of pilgrimage within and outside the period of the Hajj, the Muslim pilgrimage to Mecca.

Some 750 OFWs, including Wednesday’s deportees, had rushed to the Philippine Consulate this month after “some enterprising Filipino” spread the news that the Saudi government had granted a general amnesty all foreign workers with immigration violations there, Conejos said.

“The grace period had lapsed but the Philippine consulate requested that the 750 be given consideration, and we should thank the Saudi government for granting it,” Conejos told the OFWs gathered in a waiting area inside the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA) Terminal 1.

Had they been denied amnesty, the OFWs would have faced criminal charges, trial and possible jail time for their violations, among them fleeing employers, overstaying and bearing children out of wedlock.

“You tell us that there are still many left there. Don't worry because they will be able to come home. But we are stopping at the 750,” said Conejos.

He later told reporters that other OFWs who would like to return home would have to go through the normal process, which would entail facing their violations and then securing exit visas through their employers.

As for the repatriated children, all of whom were born in Jeddah but many outside marriage, Conejos said the foreign office would find a way to fix their birth registration and documents. - Tarra Quismundo, Inquirer, June 13, 2007