11 pardoned OFWs miss flight back to Manila

They were just a minute too late, but 11 pardoned overseas Filipino workers missed their flight back to Manila after languishing in a Riyadh jail in Saudi Arabia for several months.

Migrants’ rights group Migrante-Middle East said the eleven were supposed to depart from Riyadh via Saudi Airlines at midnight of March 15, but jail officers brought them to the airport just a minute after their plane had left.

The eleven were among those earlier convicted of petty crimes and later granted pardon on December 11 by the King of Saudi Arabia to mark the return of crown prince Sultan bin Abdulaziz from medical treatment overseas. (See: DFA lobbies Saudi govt to include Pinoys in pardon)

“Sir, tumawag ako para sabihin sa iyo na andito pa kami sa Malaz Central Jail. Naiwan kami sa flight namin. Namuti lang mga mata ng aming pamilya sa kakahintay sa amin sa airport sa Pilipinas (Sir, I called to let you know that we’re still here at Malaz Central Jail. We missed our flight. Our families in the Philippines waited for us in vain)," OFW Arnulfo Alcantara said in a phone conversation on Thursday, as quoted by Migrante regional coordinator John Leonard Monterona.

Alcantara, 42 years old, from Bulacan, was sent to jail along with four other OFWs in October last year for possession of alcohol, but the group had maintained the Saudi police planted bottles of liquor against them in a random search of their rented accommodation in Riyadh.

According to Monterona, Alcantara said he and the 10 others were brought by the Saudi police to the immigration office at the airport, but were told by the airport personnel that the plane had already left about a minute earlier.

Apart from Alcantara, the other pardoned OFWs were identified as Carlos Garci, Junie Balite, Edwardo Gasa, Ernesto Estrella, Richard Tinduyan, Rexel Cue, Christopher Barkin, and 3 others who were unidentified as of this posting.

The workers are still at Malaz Central Jail waiting for the new schedule of their flight back.

Monterona meanwhile said while the Philippine Embassy in Riyadh admitted that it has overlooked the OFWs’ repatriation schedule, it promised to speed up efforts to rebook the workers’ flight, possibly next week.

Alcantara lamented that they were informed of their flight schedule by Saudi authorities only on the same day according to Monterona, and that no Embassy personnel assisted them on their trip to the airport.

The Malaz Central Jail is about 45 kilometers away from the airport, which would take about an hour of travel.

The Philippine Embassy in Riyadh could not be reached as of posting time, as there are no offices in the Kingdom on Thursdays and Fridays.—JV, GMANews.TV

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