Beheading brings more fear to kin of OFWs on Saudi death row
MANILA, Philippines — The beheading of OFW Jenifer Bidoya a.k.a. Venancio Ladion in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia brought more fear and depression to the families of Edison and Rolando Gonzales and Eduardo Arcilla, whose death sentence where affirmed by the Tameez Appellate Court in Jeddah just a month ago.
Norie, sister of the Gonzales brothers, reiterated her appeal to President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, Vice President Noli de Castro and Senate President Manuel Villar to save her brothers and Arcilla and four others languishing in jail.
Bidoya was convicted of the crime of murder of a Saudi national and sentenced to death by the Jeddah Sharia'h Grand Court in April 2007.
Gina Esguerra, coordinator of Migrants Assistance Committee of Migrante,said that Bidoya, also known as Venancio Ladion, was executed in Jeddah, one-and-a-half-hour before Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) Undersecretary Esteban Conejos talked about the supposed protection of overseas Filipino workers that the upcoming Global Forum on Migration and Development (GFMD) will bring about.
The Philippines is hosting the the GFMD, which is expected to gather delegates from various countries and migrant groups worldwide to tackle migration and foreign labor concerns.
"Conejos said the GFMD will focus on the 'person' itself, the migrants. But how will he explain the death of Ladion? Esguerra said.
Esguerra added that the case is just a part of the whole picture of migration's ill effects.
Migrante's Migrants Assistance Committee receives almost a thousand of OFW cases annually ranging from illegal recruitment, human trafficking, non-payment of wages, physical, mental and sexual abuse, mysterious deaths and OFWs in death row.
She said her committee is currently handling other cases of Filipinos in death row like the case of brothers Edison and Rolando Gonzales in Jeddah and Cecilia Alcaraz in Taiwan.
"Families of these OFWs fear for the lives of their loved ones. They handed the cases to Migrante because the government is doing nothing to save them" she added.
Esguerra slammed Conejos for saying that GFMD will focus on migrants and insisted the forum will focus really on the commodification of Filipinos as cheap and docile labor.
"Aggressive marketing of Philippine government made it the biggest recruitment agency not only in the country but in the whole world. This only shows how desperate and how dependent our government is in overseas employment and remittances. They sell us in the name of so called 'development' at our expense," Esguerra added.
Esguerra also said Conejos should not take pride in hosting the GFMD because it is tantamount to hosting representatives of host countries who are conducting crackdown on undocumented Filipino migrants, inhumane deportation of refugees, torturing them to forcibly admit crimes they did not commit, and inflicting various human rights violations on OFWs.
"GFMD is actually a gathering of anti-migrant governments and a market place for modern-day slave trading. That's why the main stake holders, the migrants themselves, are not invited in the forum to voice out their real situation" she said.
Esguerra also chided Conejos for saying that migration of Filipinos is a supply and demand thing.
"It's not a supply and demand thing. Filipinos are going abroad not out of free will but were forced to be separated from their loved ones due to their family's need to survive," said Esguerra. - GMANews.TV
Norie, sister of the Gonzales brothers, reiterated her appeal to President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, Vice President Noli de Castro and Senate President Manuel Villar to save her brothers and Arcilla and four others languishing in jail.
Bidoya was convicted of the crime of murder of a Saudi national and sentenced to death by the Jeddah Sharia'h Grand Court in April 2007.
Gina Esguerra, coordinator of Migrants Assistance Committee of Migrante,said that Bidoya, also known as Venancio Ladion, was executed in Jeddah, one-and-a-half-hour before Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) Undersecretary Esteban Conejos talked about the supposed protection of overseas Filipino workers that the upcoming Global Forum on Migration and Development (GFMD) will bring about.
The Philippines is hosting the the GFMD, which is expected to gather delegates from various countries and migrant groups worldwide to tackle migration and foreign labor concerns.
"Conejos said the GFMD will focus on the 'person' itself, the migrants. But how will he explain the death of Ladion? Esguerra said.
Esguerra added that the case is just a part of the whole picture of migration's ill effects.
Migrante's Migrants Assistance Committee receives almost a thousand of OFW cases annually ranging from illegal recruitment, human trafficking, non-payment of wages, physical, mental and sexual abuse, mysterious deaths and OFWs in death row.
She said her committee is currently handling other cases of Filipinos in death row like the case of brothers Edison and Rolando Gonzales in Jeddah and Cecilia Alcaraz in Taiwan.
"Families of these OFWs fear for the lives of their loved ones. They handed the cases to Migrante because the government is doing nothing to save them" she added.
Esguerra slammed Conejos for saying that GFMD will focus on migrants and insisted the forum will focus really on the commodification of Filipinos as cheap and docile labor.
"Aggressive marketing of Philippine government made it the biggest recruitment agency not only in the country but in the whole world. This only shows how desperate and how dependent our government is in overseas employment and remittances. They sell us in the name of so called 'development' at our expense," Esguerra added.
Esguerra also said Conejos should not take pride in hosting the GFMD because it is tantamount to hosting representatives of host countries who are conducting crackdown on undocumented Filipino migrants, inhumane deportation of refugees, torturing them to forcibly admit crimes they did not commit, and inflicting various human rights violations on OFWs.
"GFMD is actually a gathering of anti-migrant governments and a market place for modern-day slave trading. That's why the main stake holders, the migrants themselves, are not invited in the forum to voice out their real situation" she said.
Esguerra also chided Conejos for saying that migration of Filipinos is a supply and demand thing.
"It's not a supply and demand thing. Filipinos are going abroad not out of free will but were forced to be separated from their loved ones due to their family's need to survive," said Esguerra. - GMANews.TV
Comments