“I hope Mary Jane will return soon and my eldest daughter [in Dammam] recover swiftly so that we all can be reunited here. I hope the president is watching, and come to the aid of my daughters,” she added
With no salary and little assistance, some OFWs in the Middle East have resorted to scavenging for food.
Filipino migrant leaders in the United Kingdom, Canada, and US revealed that undocumented workers in those countries are the hardest hit with the lack of social protection amid the dreaded pandemic.
“Heaps of backlog in swab testing, slow release of test results, congested quarantine facilities, distressed OFWs, slow repatriation to provinces – will the government still wait for an outbreak before these problems are resolved?”
“Filipino migrants are tired of being treated as milking cows by the Philippine government. We will continue to protest the unjust provisions of the law until it is totally scrapped.”
“Instead of prioritizing widespread testing and providing support for workers, Trump has ensured profits for his Wall Street friends. We need hazard pays, our health workers should be given the pay they need…”
“OFWs deserve to get steady and efficient relief at this time of crisis. The Duterte regime better stop treating Filipino migrants as milking cows to subsidize big private profit in a country dominated by profit-oriented healthcare facilities.”
“International human rights law guarantees everyone the right to the highest attainable standard of health and obligates governments to take steps to provide medical care to those who need it. Now more than ever, we need to ensure health care access is available to all in the time of COVID-19 pandemic.”
“We have tried to reach out to the health department but we have only received their reply via email saying that we should practice social distancing. There was no response to our call for mass testing. None of the phone lines given by DOH was picking up.”
“If Italy and other developed countries could admit that their health care systems could collapse in the advent of disease outbreak, then what more in our own country where health care is inaccessible and highly privatized? Duterte’s assurance is for the police and the military, not for us and our families in the Philippines.”
“Eleven percent of households in Hong Kong have domestic workers but it seems the HK government and some employers continue to overlook this vital fact in enforcing preventive measures. Most are underfed and overworked.”