76 other stranded Pinoy bus drivers ‘forgotten’ in UAE

MANILA, Philippines - The Philippine government’s lead departments in overseas workers’ protection should immediately repatriate the remaining 76 duped Filipino bus drivers still stranded in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), a Manila-based group said Friday.

The Blas F. Ople Policy Center asked the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) and the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) to help resolve the problems concerning 76 of the original 137 bus drivers who were stranded in the Ajman Province in the UAE since January 2009.

Former Labor Undersecretary Susan Ople, president of the Center, is worried over the situation of the remaining stranded drivers, who have been reportedly living in squalid conditions. [See: Duped Pinoys scavenge for food in Dubai’s garbage]

Ople informed Senate Committee on Labor and Employment Chair Sen. Jinggoy Estrada that even if the repatriation of the 76 is set, the bus drivers still need to pay the debts they incurred while staying there.

Ople was told by one of the wives of the bus drivers, Irenea Maniego, how the stranded Filipinos languish at Ajman Camp while awaiting the resolution of their fines for overstaying.

Maniego said her husband has accumulated an equivalent of P40,000 in fines due to expired visas.
“The non-payment of fines of the remaining drivers stands in the way of their eventual repatriation or in the case of 15 drivers, their absorption into the workforce of Emirates Catering, a Dubai-based company," the Center said in a separate statement.

Lawyer Reynaldo Robles, legal counsel of the 137 bus drivers, said they have been receiving calls and texts messages from the drivers still stranded in the UAE almost daily pleading for the government to act immediately.

According to Robles, the drivers are cramped inside their quarters with no electricity and running water. The Filipinos’ food supply that came mostly from concerned Filipinos is also running out, Robles added.

Overseas Workers Welfare Administration (OWWA) Administrator Carmelita Dimzon, who was present at the hearing, assured the Center that Labor officers are negotiating with Al Toomoh Technical Services, the UAE based partner of the drivers’ recruiter, CYM International Services and Placement Agency, to pay for the penalties incurred by the OFWs for over-staying so they can be eventually repatriated.

But Robles urged the POEA to immediately resolve the administrative complaint filed against the 12 conspiring agencies “so that their escrow deposits can be garnished and used to settle the immigration penalties of all the remaining drivers."

Meanwhile, the Center also urged the DFA to cancel the passport of CYM manager Connie Paloma on the basis of the subpoena issued by the Senate to be followed by a warrant of arrest for her repeated failure to attend the Senate labor committee hearings.

But Ople said she was informed that Paloma was spotted in Dubai where she reportedly went to convince some of the bus drivers to withdraw from the multiple cases filed against her.

Estrada directed the committee secretariat to make sure that the owners of CYM International as well as 11 other recruitment agencies that took part in the massive illegal recruitment scam shall be summoned to appear before the Senate in its hearing next week. - GMANews.TV

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