22 years after the execution on of Flor Contemplacion, OFWs still mirror hope despite the odds.

Posted by Belarmino Dabalos Saguing
Rome, Italy March 12, 2018

We see Flor in every Filipino leaving the country, which according to official estimates have reached a staggering 6,092–plus daily. The number of Filipinos leaving the country to search for greener pastures has been increasing consistently for the past three decades, Poverty and massive joblessness in the country push Filipinos to look for jobs abroad.

Coupled with the government’s labor export policy that reduces people as “mere commodities in the global market,”  many Overseas Filipino Workers (OFW), like Flor, are “forced into dirty, dangerous and demeaning jobs,” with separation from families taking a toll, especially on the youth and children. 

Successive regimes, from Marcos to Duterte, treats migrants like the “proverbial milking cow,” relying on their remittances to hold up the national income figures, levying excessive fees at each stage up to the final taxes as they leave the airport.

Migration today is all about the hope for a better future and an uncaring government. We laud the OFWs, who still mirror hope despite the odds.

We urge the Philippine government to take a more significant actions to save the lives of all Filipino migrant workers who are in death rows, take a more positive steps in the generationn of jobs with humane income in the country to ease the pervading poverty among the workers and peasants, the originating sector of the migrant workers.

SAVE THE LIVES OF OFWS IN DEATH ROWS ABROAD!

END LEP NOW!

CREATE JOBS AT HOME, NOT ABROAD!

STOP TREATING OFWS AD MERE COMMODITIES AND MILKING COWS!