Overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) in Libya and their families here are being oppressed many times over by the incompetence of the Aquino administration in ensuring their prompt evacuation from the strife-torn country.
Despite the reported evacuation of more than 11,000 OFWs, some 15,000 to 19,000 still remain in Libya. Only 1,625 have so far arrived in Manila. Many of the remaining OFWs wanted to be moved out but the late response of Malacañang and the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) to the Libyan crisis, which showed signs of deteriorating as early as mid-February, deprived these migrant workers a chance to do so.
It is grossly appalling that most of the 11,000 evacuated OFWs were brought out by their employers and not by the initiative of the Aquino administration. It is also outrageous the statement of DFA Secretary Albert del Rosario that there are Filipinos who decided to stay in Libya “despite the evacuation and repatriation efforts of government”.
This obscures the more accurate assessment point that two to three weeks ago, many OFWs in Libya were already raising alarm through the local mass media that a civil war might broke out and they need to be evacuated as soon as possible but there was no clear evacuation plan by the DFA.
OFWs are forced to seek economic opportunities abroad, including in regions beset by political conflicts, due to a chronic and worsening lack of jobs domestically. Confronted with an unemployment rate that has remained double digit for 10 straight years and the absence of a comprehensive and long-term employment generation program, Filipino workers are forced to leave behind their families and pay exorbitant fees to government and recruitment agencies to land a job abroad.
Thus, the least and most urgent thing that government can do is to alleviate the sacrifices of OFWs by putting in place competent people and reliable programs to handle their welfare. One of them is making sure that the DFA can implement on time whatever emergency measures it has when situations such as in Libya arise. But Malacañang and the DFA are obviously still remiss even in this basic task of protecting the safety of the OFWs.
Even as we demand that government step up its belated evacuation efforts to save the remaining OFWs trapped in Libya, we also call for the immediate termination of foreign affairs officials who are directly involved in this mess led by DFA Undersecretary for Migrant Workers Esteban Conejos Jr.
At the same time, we demand that an easily accessible grant program providing financial and livelihood assistance be accorded to all OFWs, documented or not, affected by the turmoil in Libya and other countries. This shall be on top of whatever assistance and benefits that OFWs are entitled to receive from the Overseas Workers Welfare Administration (OWWA), which must be made readily accessible to affected OFWs.
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from: www.bayan.ph
