Body of OFW in Canada ‘going home sans govt help’ – migrant group
01/14/2010 | 01:39 AM
The body of an overseas Filipino worker (OFW) who died of brain aneurysm in Canada on Jan. 3 is arriving in Manila on Thursday, albeit without the assistance of the Philippine government according to a migrant workers group.
In a statement Wednesday, Migrante-Alberta said the Philippine Consulate in Edmonton in Canada had refused to provide assistance to the repatriation of the remains of caregiver Merlinda Agos.
Migrante-Alberta coordinator Gina Martinez Doblado said Agos’s membership benefits from the Overseas Workers Welfare Administration (OWWA), which includes funding for repatriation, have already expired.
Agos, a 49-year-old nanny in Alberta in Canada collapsed on January 3 at a retail store where she was sending money to her family in Kabangkalan town in Negros Occidental. She was admitted at the University of Alberta Hospital and was diagnosed with brain aneurysm, a condition where blood vessels going to the brain bulge and rupture.
Agos turned comatose and expired at past 11 p.m. of the same day after her family, in contact by phone with the attending physician, agreed to unplug her respirator, according to Maria Cristina Mangulabnan, a fellow caregiver.
Mangulabnan also said that according to the local consulate, it is now the responsibility of Agos’s employer to send her remains back home as she reportedly failed to renew her membership with OWWA.
Workers pay an OWWA membership fee of $25 (P1,134) upon processing of their employment contracts. The fee is repaid when an OFW enters into another contract. One of the membership’s benefits is financial assistance in cases of repatriation.
Agos was a domestic helper in Taiwan before going to Canada.
According to Doblado, other OFWs who relocated to Canada as caregivers were also unaware that membership with OWWA has to be renewed for every new employment contract they sign.
Agos’s present and previous employers, as well as a local Christian ministry, contributed to cover the cost of repatriation of her remains which amounted to CAD 7,800 (P344,442). Agos’s friends also solicited from their employers and fellow nannies, according to Doblado.
Doblado thus called on the Department of Foreign Affairs to help repatriate Agos’s remains, as well as provide assistance to her two children.
“This is an insult to her and to many OFWs who are doing service to our country through our remittances," Mangulabnan added as she scored the failure of the local consulate in Edmonton to assist in the repatriation of Agos’s body.
The Philippine consulate in Edmonton and the OWWA were unreachable for comment as of posting time. – Jerrie M. Abella/JV, GMANews.TV
In a statement Wednesday, Migrante-Alberta said the Philippine Consulate in Edmonton in Canada had refused to provide assistance to the repatriation of the remains of caregiver Merlinda Agos.
Migrante-Alberta coordinator Gina Martinez Doblado said Agos’s membership benefits from the Overseas Workers Welfare Administration (OWWA), which includes funding for repatriation, have already expired.
Agos, a 49-year-old nanny in Alberta in Canada collapsed on January 3 at a retail store where she was sending money to her family in Kabangkalan town in Negros Occidental. She was admitted at the University of Alberta Hospital and was diagnosed with brain aneurysm, a condition where blood vessels going to the brain bulge and rupture.
Agos turned comatose and expired at past 11 p.m. of the same day after her family, in contact by phone with the attending physician, agreed to unplug her respirator, according to Maria Cristina Mangulabnan, a fellow caregiver.
Mangulabnan also said that according to the local consulate, it is now the responsibility of Agos’s employer to send her remains back home as she reportedly failed to renew her membership with OWWA.
Workers pay an OWWA membership fee of $25 (P1,134) upon processing of their employment contracts. The fee is repaid when an OFW enters into another contract. One of the membership’s benefits is financial assistance in cases of repatriation.
Agos was a domestic helper in Taiwan before going to Canada.
According to Doblado, other OFWs who relocated to Canada as caregivers were also unaware that membership with OWWA has to be renewed for every new employment contract they sign.
Agos’s present and previous employers, as well as a local Christian ministry, contributed to cover the cost of repatriation of her remains which amounted to CAD 7,800 (P344,442). Agos’s friends also solicited from their employers and fellow nannies, according to Doblado.
Doblado thus called on the Department of Foreign Affairs to help repatriate Agos’s remains, as well as provide assistance to her two children.
“This is an insult to her and to many OFWs who are doing service to our country through our remittances," Mangulabnan added as she scored the failure of the local consulate in Edmonton to assist in the repatriation of Agos’s body.
The Philippine consulate in Edmonton and the OWWA were unreachable for comment as of posting time. – Jerrie M. Abella/JV, GMANews.TV
