Jinggoy Estrada brings abused OFWs home

MANILA, Philippines—Imelda Marcos—not the former first lady but the OFW—was forced by poverty to leave her home in Nueva Ecija province four months ago to try her luck as a nanny in Dubai.

But verbal beatings and overwork broke her spirit just two months into her stay there, forcing her to run away from her employer and seek refuge at the Philippine mission.

“It was so hard … I tried to be patient but I was really maltreated. They [employers] shouted at me and made me do all the house chores when I was hired as a nanny,” Marcos told reporters at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport Sunday, tears streaming down her face.

Just as emotional was 34-year-old Zenaida Calanda who, in five months, went through three employers who had the same heavy hands.

“They forced me to do all the housework, and they abused me, they slapped me,” said Calanda, who left Manila in December of last year only to have to run to the Philippine consulate in the United Arab Emirates a month ago to escape abuse.

Film premier

Marcos and Calanda were among 20 overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) in the UAE who came home Sunday with Sen. Jinggoy Estrada.

The actor-politician, who had flown to the Middle East for a film opening, said he decided to bring the migrant workers home with him after seeing their plight in crammed shelters in Dubai and Abu Dhabi.

“Most of them were runaways who were maltreated, physically abused, refused food, who were overworked with some even forced into prostitution … These 20 were ready to go, their papers were ready and all they needed were plane tickets,” said Estrada at a press conference at Terminal 1.

A hundred more

Estrada said he spent his own money to repatriate the migrant workers and promised to bring home 10 more soon.

Estrada, chair of the Senate committee on labor, said “around a hundred more” were in OFW shelters in the UAE and he vowed to visit similar facilities in Jordan, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia to check on the condition of the Filipino workers there.

Cresente Relacion of the Department of Foreign Affairs’ Migrant Workers Affairs office said there was enough money to repatriate Filipinos in distress abroad but processing their papers and plane tickets took time.

“It just so happened the senator was there … but we have enough funds to assist [OFWs],” he said. - Tarra Quismundo, Philippine Daily Inquirer, July 07, 2008