Lumabas kaya ang katotohanan sa umano'y 'sex-for-repatriation' sa Middle East?
DFA chief vows to get to the bottom of 'sex for fly' scheme. Foreign Affairs Secretary Albert Del Rosario (right) talks to reporters after a meeting with Akbayan Rep. Walden Bello at the House of Representatives in Quezon City on Wednesday, June 19. Del Rosario and Bello discussed the alleged sexual exploitation of OFWs by PHL embassy and labor officials in the Middle East. Asti Flores
Una rito, isiniwalat ni Akbayan party-list Rep. Walden Bello, chairman ng House committee on overseas workers, na ilang opisyal ng embahada ng Pilipinas at Philippine Overseas Labor Office (POLO ) sa Gitnang Silangan ang nagsasamantala sa ilang nagigipit na Pinay OFWs na nais nang umuwi sa bansa.
Narito ang talakayan nina Severino at Sec. Del Rosario:
Howie: Naririto na ba sa bansa ang isa sa tatlong embassy officials na sangkot umano sa isyu ng sex for flight na si Polo, Jordan Mario Antonio? Nasaan na po ba ang dalawang iba pa?
Del Rosario: I understand that thus Labor official is now back and he has been recalled as of June 18th. We have asked the others to return to Manila as soon as possible. We called for them yesterday. One of them is with the DFA and one of them is with DOLE (Department of Labor). We expect them soon. The same time, we also asked the head of the posts—the three posts—from Syria, Kuwait and Jordan to come back to be able to shed light to the investigation we hope to start very soon.
Howie: Just to clarify, yung mga Labor officials na nasasangkot sa ganitong mga iskandalo or issue, are they under your authority… basta ba sa embassy nagtatrabaho, nasa authority niyo ‘yon?
Del Rosario: Yes. We have this one team policy. It is headed up by the ambassador there. They are under the supervision of the ambassador
Howie: You also called back to the Home office, the heads of the posts, as you said, the ambassadors, if their subordinates were found to be guilty, or responsible for some of these practices, ano naman po yung accountability ng ambassador? Will they be made accountable as well, for itong mga ginawa ng subordinates nila sa embassy?
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Del Rosario: We’ll have to determine whether they have knowledge or whether they are accountable. These are some of the things we will look into and hopefully, we will come into an objective conclusion.
Howie: Was this the first time you’ve heard of these allegations, or matagal niyo nang naririnig ito?
Del Rosario: No. I must admit this is the first time I've heard of it. As a matter of fact, when we sat down with Cong. Bello, we tried to make certain calls to the various parties allegedly involved. To our surprise, some of the responsible people in the post also have never heard of it. So, it doesn't mean that the allegations are not true, they may be true, they may not be true. But the challenge for us is to discover, whether in fact there's these practices that are very, very disappointing and we need to look into it and come to a quick conclusion.
Howie: So far, wala pang naghahain ng pormal na reklamo and wala pa yatang lumalabas na witness or biktima. Paano niyo gagawin ang imbestigasyon kung walang reklamo o witness?
Del Rosario: We understand that there has been some verbal complaints, so, we would like to begin with that to track down the people who have expressed their complaints verbally. We have a name or two. There was one interviewed this morning on the news to say that she was also victimized. So, we would like to get the cooperation of all sectors to be able to help us in finding these people, who may be able to shed light on what really is going on. If they can file formal complaint or if you can provide testimonies, even if you are not victimized, if you have in fact witnessed these incidents, then we urge you to come forward.
Howie: Itong mga sinasabi niyo na posibleng may mga nalalaman, nasa overseas sila?
Del Rosario: Yes, I would assume some of them are overseas. I would also assume that some of them are back here. So, we will try to reach them in every possible way. We will post a hotline where they can call an officer directly of the DFA or the Labor office so that their interactions with us will be held confidential, and we will commit ourselves to protecting them.
Howie: So, hotline muna bago niyo susubukang mag-face-to-face na interview?
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Del Rosario: Well, we need to know who they are and we need to arrange for them to come forward to see.
Howie: Isa sa mga isinasangkot ay miyembro ng augmentation team ng DFA sa Syria. May record na raw po ito nang pagkakaroon ng relasyon sa distressed na OFW noon. So, bakit po siya na-deploy pa sa Syria?
Del Rosario: We don’t know that and we are trying to ascertain that yesterday. The informant of the good congressman, who has been very good in terms of cooperating with us. We’re working together in unearthing the real story of all of these allegations, we checked in the post to see if anyone there is aware of the incident in the past implicating this gentleman in the incident that we speak of, there was no information. No one knows about it, so we have to dig deeper.
Howie: Hindi naman ito yung unang pagkakataon na may taga-DFA na nasakot sa misconduct. Isang recent example si Philippine Ambassador to Kuwait Shulan Primavera, inireklamo ng pang-momolestiya, what is the status of his case?
Del Rosario: That is under official investigation now and he has engaged his own attorney and we are proceeding with the investigation.
Howie: Ano yung posibleng magiging parusa sakaling mapatunayang totoo ang mga paratang sa mga embassy official sa Kuwait, sa Jordan at Syria?
Del Rosario: From our point of view, most we can undertake is an administrative measure. What we need to do if we want to pursue this further is we have to convince the victims to sign a complaint, so that a fiscal can take a good look at it and to see if criminal charges should be filed. As I said earlier, it doesn't have to be the victim to initiate criminal charges. It could be a witness, someone who has full knowledge of what has transpired. That also is acceptable, I understand, under the law. --ARGamboa/FRJ, GMA News
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