KAKAMMPI News

MANILA, Philippines — The Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) has reminded Muslim overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) to follow the laws of countries where they are working so they can be models for suffering fellow Moros in the Philippines. An article on the MILF website (www.luwaran.net) said two MILF officials relayed the reminder to OFWs in Saudi Arabia after joining the minor pilgrimage (umrah) in Makkah (Mecca.) “We urge all of you to work diligently and religiously so that you will be appreciated by your employees and the Saudi government but also by Almighty Allah," they said. But the MILF officials also urged the OFWs to start to identify themselves as Bangsamoro, a nation which is distinct from Filipinos. The MILF said the meeting between its two officials and some 100 Moro OFWs took place last April 24 in Makkah. One of the MILF officials also advised the OFWs to spend their earnings wisely and to invest them in something tangible like land where they can plant fruit-bear...

MANILA, Philippines — While Foreign Affairs Undersecretary Esteban Conejos Jr.’s nomination to the International Organization for Migration (IOM) has reportedly been assured of support by African Caribbean Pacific (ACP) countries, Migrante International is not happy. President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo earlier nominated the official as the Philippines' candidate for deputy director general in the Geneva-based IOM, whose elections will be held June. Arroyo said Conejos “will bring to the IOM the unique combination of policy expertise backed up by solid operational capability." Migrante, however, said Conejos’ nomination is nothing to be proud about, citing his alleged bungling as DFA undersecretary in charge of migrant workers affairs. “Conejos has a proven track record of incompetence and wanton disregard for the plight of millions of OFWs; that if nominated to the global migration body, he would spell disaster not only for OFWs and their families but for migrants the world over...

MANILA, Philippines — Foreign Affairs Undersecretary Esteban Conejos Jr. got an "assurance" of support from African Caribbean Pacific (ACP) countries in his bid for a post in a global migration body, the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) said Wednesday. Right after President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo nominated Conejos for the position of deputy director general of the International Organization for Migration (IOM), he apparently started campaigning during an ACP meeting in Belgium. "Undersecretary Conejos also informed the ACP Committee of Ambassadors of his candidature to the position of deputy director general of the International Organization for Migration. His candidature was warmly welcomed and assured of support by (ACP Secretary General Sir John) Kaputin and the ACP. The ACP ambassadors will consult their respective capitals on the matter," the DFA said on its website (www.dfa.gov.ph). Conejos met with ACP representatives to convey the Philippine government...

MANILA, Philippines - While the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) has already issued health alerts to Filipinos in countries with confirmed swine flu cases, a former labor official urged the government to intensify the information drive to those who are at most risk but are least likely to hear the news about the disease. Susan Ople of the Blas F. Ople Policy Center was concerned that the health advisories might not reach domestic helpers, agricultural and factory workers employed in swine flu-affected countries since they don’t have ready access to the Internet or television. There are 309 Filipino workers and 21 permanent residents in Mexico, the DFA said. It is unclear if there are any Filipinos there employed in domestic work or in the agricultural sector. The Ople Center had earlier expressed fears that the disease might be closing in as South Korea has suspected swine-flu cases. Korea employs thousands of Filipino factory workers, many of them in meat processing factories and s...

MANILA, Philippines - After returning home penniless from Dubai, the 137 aspiring overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) are now being 'harassed' by a lending company to pay up the loans they used to process their non-existent jobs as bus drivers. Rey Salas, one of the Filipino drivers, told GMANews.TV that agents from RJJ Lacaba Financing Company are demanding them to pay the P150,000 they used to process their employment to Dubai. Salas said the lending company threatened them of jail time should they fail next week to pay up the initial P27,000 of their loan. Salas was told by his recruiter, CYM International, to loan money from RJJ Lacaba. "But what do we pay them with? They’ve already sucked our pockets dry," Salas said. Like the rest of the 137 Filipino bus drivers, Salas had to shell out more than a month of his promised salary in Dubai just to process his papers and facilitate his employment there. Former Labor Undersecretary Susan Ople, of the Blas F. Ople Policy C...

MANILA, Philippines - A total of 33 Filipinos have been arrested for being involved in drug smuggling cases in Brazil and Suriname since 2003, the Dangerous Drugs Board (DDB) reported Wednesday. According to DDB Chairman Vicente Sotto III, the information was provided by the Philippine envoy in Brazil, Ambassador Teresita V.G. Barsana, who is also the concurrent envoy to Colombia and Suriname. Sotto said that 23 of the Filipinos were arrested in Brazil while the other 10 in Suriname – six of whom are permanent residents of Brazil while the others are tourists and contract workers. Of those arrested, 19 were women and 14 men. He said that one was arrested in 2003, another in 2004, five in 2006, another five in 2007, 18 in 2008, and three in 2009. Most of them were reportedly arrested for attempting to smuggle cocaine, while the others for possessing the prohibited substance. The amount of cocaine retrieved from the Filipinos ranged from 460 grams to 69.2 kilograms. Sotto said that 15 of...

MANILA, Philippines - - Eighty-one Filipinos have been arrested in Malaysia for illegal entry, an online news report said Wednesday. The illegal migrants from the Philippines were arrested during the raid on two squatter houses at the Kampung Forest in Sandakan, the Daily Express report said. Sandakan is the second biggest city in Malaysia’s eastern state of Sabah on Borneo Island. Arrested along with the 81 were a 45-year-old man and his 59-year-old wife, who were accused of forging and selling documents to illegal migrants. Sabah Marine Operations Force (MOF) commanding officer Muhammad Sallam Spawi was quoted in the report as saying the couple supplied fake documents to Filipinos who were illegally entering Malaysia through Sandakan. Spawi said the couple stayed in one of the squatter houses while another was rented out to the Filipinos while they wait for their fake documentation. Recovered during the raids were two imitation stamps bearing the seal of the Bureau of Immigration in ...

MANILA, Philippines - The Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) will try to negotiate with the employers of the 96 overseas Filipino workers (OFW) in Poland who were earlier reported to have encountered some labor problems. “DOLE would try to negotiate with their employers," Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) Undersecretary Esteban Conejos Jr. said in a recent press conference. The 96 Filipino workers earlier complained of contract substitution, reduction of agreed salaries, sickness due to inadequate food provision, and heavy work. [See: Help urged for 96 distressed OFWs in Poland.] Conejos said 71 of the Filipino workers have refused to work due to a “labor-related incident," prompting the DFA to dispatch a consul from Budapest in Hungary to the industrial town of Aleksandrow Lodzki in Poland. He said that the OFWs who have stopped working are still staying with their employer – two of whom said they will try to resolve the dispute. Conejos said he has asked Labor Secr...

MANILA, Philippines - While on their way to safer waters, the all-Filipino crew of the recently freed MT Stolt Strength escaped another hijacking by pirates, a maritime official said. If it weren’t for the Chinese navy frigate Huangshan, which escorted the chemical tanker, the 23 Filipino seafarers might have been kidnapped again by pirates, said Administrator Elena Bautista of the Maritime Industry Authority. “There was a mother ship and another vessel," Bautista said, “They were able to reach the Stolt Strength’s flanks but because of the decisive act of the Chinese they drove the pirates away after immediately deploying choppers." The Chinese navy ship has become a Good Samaritan to the stranded MT Stolt Strength since Sunday, providing it with security, food and medical supplies. [See: Chinese navy plays Good Samaritan to RP vessel] As of 7:20 a.m. (Manila time), the Stolt Strength safely reached their port of destination in Salalah, Oman. “Together with their families an...

MANILA, Philippines — Philippine officials in Switzerland have asked Roman Catholic Church officials there to help care for overseas Filipino workers based there. The Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) said Philippine Ambassador Maria Theresa Lazaro made the request at a special dinner for the senior officials of the Swiss Catholic Church. "Ambassador Lazaro discussed with the Swiss Catholic officials the strengthening of the role of the Filipino community in Switzerland in terms of migration and integration, the support and assistance provided by the Swiss Catholic Mission and Bishop’s Conference for Migration to the Filipino migrants, and the various collaborative endeavors between and among the Philippine Embassy in Berne, the Swiss Catholic Church, and the Filipino-Swiss migrants," the DFA said on its website (www.dfa.gov.ph). It said the dinner was held at Lazaro's residence in Berne. Guests included Fr. Franz Stampfli, vicar general for the Canton of Zurich and Gla...

by ISAGANI DE LA PAZ www.ofwjournalism.net QUEZON CITY, Philippines—MORE than 0.7 million Filipinos belong to the tier that the United States government plans to rescue from a housing crisis, recent US census data bare. The 2007 American Community Survey of the US Census Bureau cited that 45.6 percent of an estimated 1.7 million Philippine-born US residents cite 30 percent or more of their monthly income goes to cost of ownership of a house, or mortgage. The US Census Bureau said the ACS provides the latest detailed look at the nation's rapidly changing and diverse population with the release of new population profiles by race, Hispanic origin, ancestry and age. These profiles were produced using the 2000 decennial census. The Census Bureau said it uses the term foreign-born to refer to anyone who is not a US citizen at birth. “This includes naturalized US citizens, Lawful Permanent Residents (immigrants), temporary migrants (such as students), humanitarian migrants (such as refug...

by JEREMAIAH M. OPINIANO and ISAGANI DE LA PAZ www.ofwjournalism.net MAKATI CITY, Philippines—RAMONES Caytiles’s stint in Taiwan is as short as the song-length of his namesake American punk rock band: two weeks. But nearly six months now since he and 171 fellow workers got pink slips last year from their employer Hanston Display Corp., Caytiles feels life is as long as Don Maclean’s American Pie song. It was the nineteenth of November, Caytiles recalls, when their music –the crinkle of New Taiwan dollar– died. When we arrived in Taiwan, we borrowed money to pay fees to a broker who paid for our travel, Caytiles said adding such was the standard process for workers trying their luck outside the Philippines. He and five other OFWs sent back after LCD manufacturer Hanston downsized are now saddled with that debt from Taiwan-based lending agencies eCash and Paylite Financing. Caytiles said they were focused on working and earning they didn’t think the Kaohhiung, Taiwan LCD manufacturer wou...

by JEREMAIAH M. OPINIANO and ISAGANI DE LA PAZ www.ofwjournalism.net PASIG CITY, Philippines—PROFESSORS studying labor migration in Asia said countries in the region will scuttle to protect their economies but avoid edging out foreign workers as a global financial collapse seeps into real sectors. One of them is Dr. Yap Mui Teng of the Lee Kwan Yew School of Public Policy under the National University of Singapore. Dr. Teng says that while Southeast Asia’s financial hub will experience a “sharp economic downturn that is the most severe in the country’s history,” it will still need foreign workers in Singapore. As countries across the world grapple with the catatonic effects of a global financial crisis, nation-states witness the decapitation of their respective labor markets. Dr. Teng says it is unavoidable that companies cut costs and fire foreign workers first and nationals last: Singapore companies forecast a minus five percent gross domestic product growth rate for this year. What’...

by JEREMAIAH M. OPINIANO and ISAGANI DE LA PAZ www.ofwjournalism.net PASIG CITY. Philippines—AS the plane nosed down to its landing in Dubai, economist Josef Yap sensed a portent of things to come for Filipino workers in the Middle East and the labor export industry. “These are the scenes of the Asian financial crisis of 1997,” Yap recalled saying to himself and to three other Southeast Asian economists during that visit in the financial capital of the United Arab Emirates. He said his colleagues agreed especially after seeing and walking inside high-end shopping malls and knowing the price tags of a day’s stay in Dubai’s luxury hotels. Yap, president of the Philippine Institute for Development Studies (PIDS), said in a forum on Asian labor migration by the Scalabrini Migration Center early this year he wondered how cash-strapped Westerners can afford staying in these places during these trying times. Those sights of the region’s economic progress can lead to an economic crisis that is...

MANILA, Philippines - The Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) will try to negotiate with the employers of the 96 overseas Filipino workers (OFW) in Poland who were earlier reported to have encountered some labor problems. “DOLE would try to negotiate with their employers," Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) Undersecretary Esteban Conejos Jr. said in a recent press conference. The 96 Filipino workers earlier complained of contract substitution, reduction of agreed salaries, sickness due to inadequate food provision, and heavy work. [See: Help urged for 96 distressed OFWs in Poland.] Conejos said 71 of the Filipino workers have refused to work due to a “labor-related incident," prompting the DFA to dispatch a consul from Budapest in Hungary to the industrial town of Aleksandrow Lodzki in Poland. He said that the OFWs who have stopped working are still staying with their employer – two of whom said they will try to resolve the dispute. Conejos said he has asked Labor Secr...

MANILA, Philippines — Philippine officials in Switzerland have asked Roman Catholic Church officials there to help care for overseas Filipino workers based there. The Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) said Philippine Ambassador Maria Theresa Lazaro made the request at a special dinner for the senior officials of the Swiss Catholic Church. "Ambassador Lazaro discussed with the Swiss Catholic officials the strengthening of the role of the Filipino community in Switzerland in terms of migration and integration, the support and assistance provided by the Swiss Catholic Mission and Bishop’s Conference for Migration to the Filipino migrants, and the various collaborative endeavors between and among the Philippine Embassy in Berne, the Swiss Catholic Church, and the Filipino-Swiss migrants," the DFA said on its website (www.dfa.gov.ph). It said the dinner was held at Lazaro's residence in Berne. Guests included Fr. Franz Stampfli, vicar general for the Canton of Zurich and Gla...

CHICAGO – Using the fastest way and largest reach to warn the public, the United States National Library of Medicine based in Bethesda, Maryland, the world’s largest medical library, used 17 languages, including Filipino (Tagalog), in issuing an advisory on how to avoid the swine flu (influenza) outbreak. The other languages used by the US health officials, who declared a public health emergency Sunday (April 26), are Arabic, American Sign Language, Chinese (Simplified and Traditional), Hmong (pronounced Mong), Japanese, Khmer, Somali, Spanish, French, Hindi, Korean, Portuguese, Russian, Ukranian and Vietnamese. Filipino-Americans constitute the second biggest Asian-American population in the United States, next to Chinese-Americans. According to Medicine Plus, there are approximately 1.2 million Filipinos in the United States who speak Tagalog. [See: Avoid beso-beso, crowds in Mexico, Pinoys told] The advisory circulated by Jennifer M. Kons, outreach and interpretation project assista...

MANILA, Philippines - The United Nations Convention on the Protection of Migrant Workers has stricken out the Philippines as model state for its failure to fulfill customary duties under the UN standards, migrants group based in Europe has said. Grace Punongbayan of Migrante Europe chapter said the Philippines was deleted as a model state at the meeting of the Steering Committee for the Campaign For Ratification of the Migrants Rights Convention presided by Ms. Carla Edelenbos, secretary of the Committee on Migrant Workers, at the UN headquarters in Geneva last April 8. The document being referred to, where the Philippines was deleted as a “positive case study of state ratification and implementation" is the “Guide on Ratification of the International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and members of Their Families. The steering committee approved the deletion after Rev. Cesar Taguba of the Ecumenical Ministry for Filipinos Abroad and Migrante-Europe...

MANILA, Philippines - Contrary to a migrant group's claim, the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) said the Philippines was not stricken out from the UN's list of model-countries for migrant workers, simply because no list exists. Foreign Affairs spokesperson Ed Malaya said the group might have been led to believe that the Philippines was demoted by the United Nations since the country did not appear in the Guide on Ratification of the International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and members of Their Families. "How can the Philippines be deleted when no list exists?" Malaya told GMANews.TV in an interview. Grace Punongbayan of Migrante Europe chapter said the Philippines was deleted as a model state at the meeting of the Steering Committee for the Campaign For Ratification of the Migrants Rights Convention presided by Ms. Carla Edelenbos, secretary of the Committee on Migrant Workers, at the UN headquarters in Geneva last April 8. [S...

MANILA, Philippines - The 23 Filipino seafarers manning the recently freed chemical tanker will be arriving in Manila on the weekend, the Department of Foreign Affairs said. Foreign Affairs Undersecretary Esteban Conejos Jr, told reporters on Monday that the MT Stolt Strength is expected to dock on Wednesday at a safe port, which he refused to identify. But Conejos assured that the Filipino crew is safe with the Chinese navy escorting them to safer waters. [See: Chinese navy plays Good Samarian to RP vessel] The DFA official reiterated that President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo has directed the Labor department to ban the deployment of Filipino seafarers in vessels that ply the Gulf of Aden, a piracy hotspot in the Horn of Africa. The Department of Labor and Employment is reportedly preparing the guidelines. Conejos urges manning agencies to advise ships with Filipino seafarers to traverse the high-seas through maritime security corridor patrolled by combined maritime task force of Germany...

MANILA, Philippines - Filipino workers in Qatar are getting excellent grades for reliability, skill, industry and professionalism, President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo was told Saturday (Doha time). A Malacañang statement Sunday said the "rave reviews" came from chief executive officers (CEOs) and other top officials of 27 Qatar-based companies during an "appreciation lunch" with Arroyo. The lunch was held at the Sheraton Doha Hotel and Resort on Saturday shortly upon Arroyo's arrival. Meanwhile, Arroyo said the Philippine government is projecting only a minimal displacement of overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) despite the financial crisis sweeping across the globe. She told Filipinos at the Sheraton Doha Hotel and Resort that instead of retrenching its expatriate workforce, Qatar needs 37,000 more workers. This more than offsets the displacement of Filipino workers in other countries, she said. With Arroyo in the trip to Qatar were secretaries Peter Favila (trade),...

BY JOSETTE EMILY Z. DE JESUS MIGRANT WATCH Bulatlat Nelson Ebreo left the Philippines late last year to work as a tile setter in Qatar, seeking to provide a good future for his three children, the eldest of whom is still in Grade III, and his wife. However, after months of receiving nothing from his employer, he ended up begging on the streets of Qatar and his family went hungry. Ebreo was recruited by SML Human Resource Inc. and was promised a salary of US$500 a month. According to him, he was asking for a basic contract but the agency instead provided them an offer letter assuring them of jobs in Qatar. Upon arrival in Qatar, he learned that there is no contract and the salary would be based on production. For two months of work, he was only paid QR800 each month which was lower than what was stipulated. "We had to shoulder our food, and our water and electricity expenses would also be deducted from our salaries. If you got sick they wouldn’t bring you to the hospital. We had to...

abs-cbnNEWS.com The Senate is set to summon the owner and officials of a recruitment agency that sent 137 Filipino bus drivers to Dubai. Reports said the Senate’s Committee on Labor, Employment and Human Resources Development will subpoena CYM International Services owner Connie Paloma and the company’s directors. The firm recruited the overseas Filipino workers to work as bus drivers in Dubai. However, the OFWs said they found themselves stranded in Dubai after learning that there was no job order for them. One of the drivers Napoleon Santos recounted how they lived near a dump site with no electricity and had nothing to eat. They said that they had to compete with camels for tomatoes to have something to eat. Santos and some of his companions already made it back home this month. However, there are still 115 others stranded in Dubai. The drivers were allegedly asked to pay P150,000 each as placement fee. Earlier reports stated that some used their house and lot as collateral to come ...

The first batch of Filipinos affected by the earthquake in Abruzzo, Italy arrived home, reports said Wednesday. The batch consisted of six people from two families. They arrived on board a Cathay Pacific CX 907 flight from Italy. Among those repatriated was Jennifer Arce who worked as a domestic worker in Italy for 13 years. “Akala namin mamamatay kami. Tinanggap ko na lang, naghintay na lang, nagdasal po,” said Arce on her experience during the April 6 earthquake which hit Central Italy. Arce said she was at home with her child when the earthquake occurred. “Sa taas namin may nakatira, akala ko guguho, unan nilagay ko sa anak ko, para di masaktan masyado,” said Arce. Like Arce, another OFW identified as Marvin Gacayan also saved his wife and two kids. “Nagpapasalamat kami at binigyan kami ng Diyos ng pangalawang buhay,” said Gacayan. The two families were evacuated to safer grounds and stayed in tents provided for victims displaced by the earthquake. They remained there for three week...

A Filipino man was arrested by authorities in Golden Meadow in Louisiana in the United States, for alleged bigamy, a report said. In a report written by Raymond Legendre and published online by the dailycomet.com, the Filipino was identified as Norman A. Simon. The report said that Simon could face possible jail term and deportation after investigations found out that he had three wives, two in the Philippines and one in the US. Simon reportedly married a Lafourche Parish woman allegedly to gain citizenship. The Filipino allegedly told police that he had separated from the two women in the Philippines, but explained that he had not divorced them.abs-cbnNEWS.com

By JEREMAIAH M. OPINIANO and ISAGANI DE LA PAZ, www.ofwjournalism.net Ramones Caytiles’s stint in Taiwan is as short as the song-length of his namesake American punk rock band: two weeks. But nearly six months now since he and 171 fellow workers got pink slips last year from their employer Hanston Display Corp., Caytiles feels life is as long as Don McLean’s American Pie song. It was the nineteenth of November, Caytiles recalls, when their music –the crinkle of New Taiwan dollar– died. “When we arrived in Taiwan, we borrowed money to pay fees to a broker who paid for our travel,” Caytiles said adding such was the standard process for workers trying their luck outside the Philippines. He and five other OFWs, sent back after LCD manufacturer Hanston downsized, are now saddled with that debt from Taiwan-based lending agencies eCash and Paylite Financing. Caytiles said they were focused on working and earning they didn’t think the Taiwan LCD manufacturer would get hit by the economic catat...

MANILA, Philippines - At least 80 of the 137 Filipino bus drivers who were duped into paying money for non-existent jobs in Dubai will finally be able to find employment, an official of the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) said Wednesday. Agnes Cervantes, executive director of the DFA’s office of migrants workers affairs, told of the good news during a Senate hearing on the plight of the bus drivers. Cervantes said she received a call from the consul general in Dubai informing her of the news. She said 80 of the bus drivers are being considered by Emirates Flight Catering and Qatar Agencies to work for them. The Emirates Flight Catering contacted the bus drivers, she said. She said the bus drivers were asked to take a test for drivers and if they pass, they will work as drivers. If they fail, they would be given other jobs. Richard Pardo Boitizon, one of the drivers who was contacted by Emirates Flight Catering, told reporters on the sidelines of the hearing that he would be working...

MANILA, Philippines - While some of the world’s leading economies are crumbling amid the global slowdown, an economist asks whether it is sustainable for the Philippine government to continue pushing for overseas labor and go on recruitment sprees in the Middle East. Benjamin Diokno, a professor of economics at the University of the Philippines, posed the question as government officials returned from their trips in the Middle East allegedly to go on a ‘recruitment spree.’ “Do we want to continue exporting labor in the long term?" Diokno asked at a forum on the global economic crisis on Tuesday. Diokno, who is a former secretary of budget, said the battle for economic stability during these dire times should be fought in the home front by creating more jobs and preserving them. This was echoed by labor economics specialist Clarence Pascual, saying that the multi-billion dollar remittance being sent home annually by Filipino overseas workers have not been used wisely to put a lid o...

MANILA, Philippines - The first batch of Filipinos affected by the recent strong earthquake in Italy arrived in Manila on Wednesday morning, the Overseas Workers’ Welfare Administration (OWWA) said. Only six Filipinos have been repatriated so far after a 6.3-magnitude earthquake rocked the Italian city of L'Aquila on April 6. L’Aquila is the capital of Abruzzo and is approximately two to three hours from Rome. OWWA chief Carmelita Dimzon accompanied the group and offered them repatriation and livelihood loans in behalf of Labor Secretary Marianito Roque. Dimzon also reportedly met with other Filipinos whose homes have been leveled in the strong earthquake. The six repatriated Filipinos were identified as Marvin Gacayan, Beatrice Gacayan, Irish Faye Gacayan, Krizelle Maye Gacayan, Jennifer Molina and Samantha Molina. Dimzon said those who want to return to the Philippines must first secure their passports and other necessary travel documents that might have been buried in the rubble...

MANILA, Philippines - The Department of Foreign Affairs is appealing for understanding from the shipping industry for the government’s deployment ban to the Gulf of Aden, saying it is a necessary measure to curb the spiking number of Filipino seafarers being kidnapped by Somali pirates. Foreign Affairs spokesperson Ed Malaya told GMA News on Wednesday morning that the deployment ban is only temporary and is meant to put a lid on the abduction of Filipino crew members plying the troubled gulf. "The ban is only an interim emergency measure," Malaya told Arnold Clavio over Unang Balita, “We can’t just keep our eyes closed as the number of Filipino seafarers kidnapped there is spiking." Based from data collected by GMANews.TV, a total of 80 Filipino seafarers remain captive by Somali pirates, who have resorted to sea banditry after the collapse of their central government in 1991. The number of Filipino seafarers being held hostage in Somalia have constantly yo-yoed — from 4...

MANILA, Philippines — The number of new overseas absentee voter (OAV) registrants has topped the 50,000 mark and the government is aiming for one million, the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) said late Tuesday. DFA Undersecretary and Overseas Absentee Voting Secretariat (OAVS) chairman Rafael Seguis said the number of new OAV registrants now stands at 50,122. “The performance of all Posts is being constantly monitored by the OAVS. While the Posts’ Officers and Staff, especially the OAV Focal Persons, have an important role to play in the on-going exercise, the Chiefs of Mission/ Ambassadors/ Heads of Posts bear a higher responsibility," he said in an article on the DFA website (www.dfa.gov.ph). He said he expects the number of OAVs to increase tremendously as the campaign for promotion of OAV activities in all Philippine Foreign Service Posts (FSPs) intensifies. OAV registration will end on August 31. “To date, the OAVS has issued a series of instructions to all FSPs to strengt...

MANILA, Philippines - When Catherine heard that his husband Rodell Borreta and his companions were finally released by the Somali pirates, she could not contain her happiness. The Blas F. Ople Policy Center said that Catherine received a text message from Sea Cap Shipping Company at 12 noon, saying that Rodell – with 22 other Filipino crew of chemical tanker MT Stolt Strength – was released Tuesday, after more than five months in captivity. It read: “Thank God at sinagot na ang ating mga panalangin. Na-release na po ang crew sa mga kamay ng pirata. [Thank God our prayers have been answered. The crew has finally been released] They are all onboard and safe. God bless us. Just wait for our call today." Upon receiving the text message, Catherine reportedly cried as she repeatedly uttered “Thank you, Lord!" “I am so overjoyed by the good news! I am very happy and very thankful especially to the Lord. He has heard our prayers," she told the Center. The other wives of the free...

MANILA, Philippines - The 23 Filipino crew of chemical tanker MT Stolt Strength are more than welcome to re-apply with the company once they return safely to Manila, a spokesperson of the shipowners said on Tuesday. Captain Dexter Custodio, spokesman of ship owner Sagana Shipping Lines, told GMANews.TV that they have no problem re-hiring the Filipino seamen should they decide to give seafaring another try. “We are willing to hire them again. There’s no problem with that," Custodio said. Custodio added that the crew was not careless when Somali pirates hijacked the Filipino-manned chemical tanker as it was traveling from Senegal in Africa to India. “They are just victims too. No one wanted that to happen," Custodio said. MT Stolt Strength was released on Tuesday morning, 162 days after being held in Somalia. In a separate statement, Sagana Shipping Lines expressed their gratitude to the families of the crewmen for their patience and cooperation and to the Philippine government...