Duped Pinoys scavenge for food in Dubai’s garbage

MANILA, Philippines - They left home to provide food on their family’s tables but were left scavenging for their own meals in Dubai’s dumpsite. This is the plight of 137 stranded Filipinos after their recruiter duped them for nonexistent jobs as bus drivers in one of the Mideast’s richest emirates. Filipina Oliver, one of the wives of the stranded Filipinos, showed GMA News reporter Claire Delfin pictures of her husband sneaking into the dumpsite through steel barricades to look for empty bottles and cans to sell. Oliver said her husband and their companions would sometimes pick leaves from tomato plants, which managed to grow in the area, and cook them. They also tried to shoo away camels inside the dumpsite’s vicinity, which were competing with them for food. Napoleon Santos, one of the stranded Filipinos repatriated in Manila on Wednesday, said their recruiter told them to stay in Dubai last January while waiting for their training as bus drivers. CYM International Services and Placement Agency, Inc. promised that they could earn as much as P60,000 per month at Dubai’s government transport agency – the Roads and Transport Authority (RTA). But when the job never came three months later, some of them were forced to scavenge. While eleven have already returned home as of Wednesday, others have opted to stay in Dubai for the meantime and wait until the Philippine Labor department facilitates their transfer to Qatar where jobs are reportedly “waiting for them." But their passports are allegedly being held by their recruiter’s foreign counterpart in Dubai – preventing them from applying for new jobs. President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, who had recently visited Dubai and has reportedly secured some 200,000 jobs for Filipinos there, ordered the filing of charges against CYM International. The Philippine Overseas Employment Agency had also suspended the license of CYM as well as its affiliate lending company that loaned the Filipino workers’ P150,000 placement fees. Former Labor Undersecretary Susan Ople, who concurrently heads the Blas F. Ople Policy Center, said the Filipinos thought they would be legitimately employed in the Middle East since the recruitment agency was licensed by the POEA. But Ople said the plight of the 137 Filipinos in Dubai only shows that the POEA must also update their records and check if all licensed recruiters are not unscrupulous agencies. - Mark Joseph Ubalde, GMANews.TV