200 Filipinos in Jeddah fail to make it home

More than 200 runaway Filipino women and children risk being left behind in Saudi Arabia, with repatriation efforts going at a snail's pace. Over 150 women and at least 40 children, the youngest of whom is a month-old baby, were stranded in Jeddah for still unknown reasons. The women and children are among the hundreds of Filipino workers who escaped from their employers for reasons such as alleged nonpayment of salary or overtime pay, overwork and physical abuse. "They (Saudi Immigration officials) always tell us that the deportation area is full every time we follow up on the case of our fellow Filipinos. But we are not losing hope; we will do our best to send them home at the earliest time," Labor Attaché Vicente Cabe said. However, the Philippine Overseas Labor Office (POLO) reported that a hundred male Filipino workers had been sent home on Monday. Cabe said they were still trying to find out why the women and children had not been sent home ahead of the men, admitting that Philippine officials were unsure when the rest would be sent home. Cabe said the repatriation had come two months after the workers, mostly ‘runaways,' were taken to a safe house being rented by the Philippine government while they awaited their exit papers. The workers, however, did not have to stay long in the deportation center, he added. "They managed to leave less than a week since they arrived at the deportation area," Anthony Basil, a case officer at the Overseas Workers Welfare Administration (OWWA), said in Filipino. Only seven men were not repatriated pending resolution of their labor cases. Cabe said the government had spent 1,200 Saudi riyals (about P14,400) for each one-way plane ticket, plus 25 riyals daily for each worker's board and lodging expenses. The stranded workers were from Jeddah, the capital city of Riyadh, and the eastern province cities of Alkhobar, Dammam and Jubail. Reports reaching Philippine Consulate in Jeddah have said that many of the runaway Filipino workers had been brought to Jeddah by fixers promising them a quick repatriation for a fee. Meanwhile, Cabe appealed to other workers in the kingdom to think many times before running away from their employers to avoid getting into further trouble. Despite problems faced by the workers, Saudi Arabia is still the top destination for Filipino workers. Last year, there were about 1.2 million Filipino workers in the kingdom and the figure continues togrow, according to the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA). Ronaldo Z. Concha/NPA, GMANews.TV