137 Filipinos stranded in Dubai

Probe, suspension of recruiter sought
By Veronica Uy
INQUIRER.net
Posted date: April 13, 2009

MANILA, Philippines—One-hundred thirty-seven Filipino bus drivers are stranded in Dubai and asking the government to help repatriate and give them justice, a labor policy group said Monday.

In a statement, the Blas F. Ople Policy Center also called on the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA) to investigate and, if possible, suspend the license of CYM International Services, the agency that recruited the drivers, and its counterpart in Dubai, Al Toomoh Technical Services.

“The sheer number of victims involved constitutes an act of economic sabotage by this licensed agency,” said former labor undersecretary Susan Ople, who heads the center named after her father. “We urge immediate action and for the owners of the agency to be barred from leaving the country.”

She said one of the drivers, Claro Oliver of Rizal province, contacted her office over the weekend about their plight.

Citing her conversation with Oliver, Ople said the agency promised the Filipino drivers good-paying jobs with the Dubai government’s Roads and Transport Authority (RTA).

The drivers said they paid as much as P150,000 to CYM International Services in exchange for the jobs.

However, some of the drivers—some of who quit their local jobs despite years of service—have been waiting for the RTA jobs since January this year.

“Desperate for food and cash, the stranded drives have resorted to scavenging a dumpsite for scrap food,” Ople said.

The Filipino community there learned about the workers’ plight from Filipino journalists working in Dubai, and went to the dumpsite where they were staying to bring them food, water, and other items.

Eliseo Maximo, who has worked for 11 years as a bus driver in Manila, said: “We’ve been collecting aluminum cans, selling them at 4 dirhams [1 dirham is about P10] per kilogram in Ajman, just to have something to eat.”

Aside from lack of food and shelter, the stranded Filipino drivers who have worked for years in companies like Baliuag Transit also complain that because their passports are being held by the Dubai counterpart of their agency, they could not apply for new jobs.

Ople asked the Philippine consulate in Dubai to intervene and retrieve the passports of the stranded workers, as they still want to work in Dubai instead of being repatriated back.

“If they come home, whatever they earn as bus drivers won’t be enough to pay off their loans and still sustain the needs of their families,” she explained.

Ople said she is awaiting documents from the bus drivers that would help speed up the POEA’s investigation into the alleged illegal recruitment practices of CYM International Services and its counterpart in Dubai.

The former labor undersecretary said she also hoped the 137 drivers would be able to meet President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, Vice President Noli De Castro, and other high-ranking officials who are now visiting Dubai.