MIGRANT WATCH

OFW’s Family Threatens to Return PGMA Award to Arroyo
Ailing dietician back home after 12 days in Kuwait

Here’s one presidential awardee denied financial support by her own government as a migrant professional. And as a result, the awardee’s family has threatened to return the award in protest to Malacañang – the presidential office.

BY RONALYN OLEA
Bulatlat.com

Graduating at the top of her class in nutrition and dietetics in the Polytechnic University of the Philippines in Manila last year, Joyce received the President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo (PGMA) award.

A year later, on May 16, she flew to Riyadh, Saudi Arabia to work as dietician in the Gulf Catering Company. It turned out to be a swift sojourn. After only 12 days, she went home - without a penny and, worse, apparently losing her sanity.

Members of Migrante International who are assisting Joy told Bulatlat.com that the dietician cannot talk intelligibly.  Since coming back, she had done nothing but cry and go to the bathroom to take a bath as though wanting to get rid of something.

Migrante members have begun probing into the circumstances that caused her ailment. They brought her to the Philippine General Hospital where she is presently confined. Doctors diagnosed her as having brief psychotic disorder and occupational problems.

No benefits

What is worse, said Mac Ramirez, deputy secretary general of Kabataan ng Migranteng Pilipino Para sa Bayan (Kamiyan or Migrant Filipino Youth for the Nation), Joyce could not avail of benefits from the Overseas Workers Welfare Administration (OWWA). 

Since July 1 last year, OWWA’s general financial assistance program has been suspended.  For yet unclear reasons, overseas Filipino workers and their families cannot receive medical assistance, scholarship, repatriation and burial expenses. Migrante has led the fight for the reinstitution of the benefits, among others.

Joyce, despite being a PGMA awardee, is not exempted from the new OWWA policy. And it is Joyce’s family who foots the bill for her treatment.

Ramirez said that if no OWWA benefits are accorded to Joyce, her family would in protest return the PGMA award to the person in whose name the honor was given – President Arroyo herself.

Meanwhile, PUP President Moises Salvador has called for an investigation of the case.  

Not isolated

Ramirez revealed that Joyce is only one of 38 OFWs who have suffered mental disorder while working abroad. OWWA has documented 994 others who suffered various forms of abuse from January 2 to May 27 this year alone. 

Ramirez said despite the alarming figures, OWWA continues to neglect the welfare of OFWs. He lambasted the OWWA Omnibus Policies adopted in September last year as tantamount to betrayal of the migrant workers’ interests. The omnibus policies withdrew a package of welfare rights and benefits that had been enacted on behalf of the overseas workers and professionals.  Bulatlat.com

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