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

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

PCG: China’s bullying in West Philippine Sea undermines international law --- Ghio Ong - The Philippine Star

MANILA, Philippines — Letting China sustain its aggression in the West Philippine Sea would make other countries doubt the strength of international law currently being asserted by the Philippines, Commodore Jay Tarriela of the Philippine Coast Guard (PCG) said. “Allowing China to blatantly disregard the established rules-based order threatens the very foundation that we all depend on,” he wrote in a post on X last Tuesday. He added, “If we permit this, countries worldwide may forget why this order was created in the first place. Nations could begin to doubt the significance of adhering to international law if powerful bullies can easily violate it.” Tarriela also said defiance of other countries to a rules-based order would result in the prevalence of cruelty. He wrote, “This could lead us back to a time when might makes right, undermining the global structures that keep human greed, savagery and barbarism in check. Such a scenario would not only invite challenges from aggressive ...
Read more

China ships maintain presence in key West Philippine Sea areas --- Michael Punongbayan - The Philippine Star

STAR / Michael Varcas MANILA, Philippines — While Chinese vessels in the West Philippine Sea (WPS) have decreased in number, they have maintained a presence in three key land features where naval and coast guard ships have intensified operations in the past seven days, according to the Philippine Navy. Latest monitoring by the Philippine Navy showed armed ships of the People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) maintaining a menacing presence around the grounded BRP Sierra Madre in Ayungin Shoal, Panatag Shoal and Escoda Shoal. According to the Philippine Navy, there are 17 Chinese military vessels and 28 China Coast Guard (CCG) boats spotted inside the country’s exclusive economic zone (EEZ) between Sept. 23 and 30, or one vessel more than in the previous week Sept.17-23. Five of the warships were seen roaming around the vicinity of Escoda Shoal, along with 10 CCG vessels and 12 maritime militia vessels (MMVs). There are also two PLAN ships in Ayungin Shoal as well as 10 CCG boats and 12...
Read more

Social media seen as cause of rising intermarriages --- Helen Flores - The Philippine Star

MANILA, Philippines — The Commission on Filipinos Overseas (CFO) sees social media as the main reason for the rising number of Filipinos marrying or becoming partners of foreign nationals. In 2022, the CFO recorded 6,854 marriages or partnerships with foreign nationals, a 40.1 percent increase from the 4,891 “intermarriages” recorded in 2021. “First of all, what we see in the increase in the marriage rate of Filipinos or Filipinos with foreign partners is because of social media, (that) is number one; matchings; letters, introduction of their friends,” CFO chairperson Romulo Arugay said at the Bagong Pilipinas Ngayon public briefing yesterday. Arugay said the agency has been registering a high number of intermarriages since 2007, but the figures went down during the COVID-19 pandemic. From over 6,500 Filipinos who married foreign nationals, only 600 are men, he said. Most of them are married to Americans, Japanese, Germans, Canadians and Australians, Arugay said. Arugay warned Fi...
Read more