OFWs denied exit visas drag Saudi employer to court

Two overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) in Saudi Arabia haled their employer to court for allegedly refusing to give them their exit visas and benefits six weeks after they quit their jobs.

Engineers Gerardo Almonte, 48, and Dexter Padaoan, 29, filed a complaint with the Saudi Labor Court in Dammam, accompanied by a Philippine Overseas Labor Office-Eastern Region official.

“Both are mechanical engineers who started working for their company, a manpower supplier, in Dammam in August 2008,” the POLO-ERO official said in an article posted on Saudi website Arab News.

The investigation showed that the two engineers filed their resignation letters a month before completing their two-year contract, saying they wanted to go home.

However, the engineers said their employer, who they identified as Mohammed Al-Haider, refused to grant them exit visa clearance and end-of-service benefits.

This prompted them to seek assistance from militant OFW group Migrante in Alkhobar.

“Our employer Mohammed Al-Haider and the POLO representative failed to attend our first hearing … The employer did not show up again for our second hearing, although a POLO representative attended. However, no hearing took place,” the two OFWs wrote in a letter to Migrante on Sunday.

On the same day, the Saudi labor judge issued a subpoena asking the police to ensure the employer’s attendance at the next hearing.

“But upon receiving the subpoena, the employer threatened them. Instead of going home, he said they would be sent to jail instead if they pursue the case against him,” Migrante welfare officer Marcial Abay said.

Abay claimed the demands of the two OFWs are valid since they have completed their contracts and are in accordance with the provisions of Saudi labor law.

Migrante Middle East coordinator John Leonard Monterona said he would talk to Philippine Labor Secretary Rosalinda Baldoz and request for a lawyer for the two OFWs.

He claimed that while POLO officials had been attending hearings involving OFWs, there was no full-time lawyer because of a lack of funds.

“We urge President Benigno Simeon ‘Noynoy’ Aquino III to reconsider his decision to cut the legal assistance fund (LAF) for Filipino migrant workers so that OFWs like Almonte and Padaoan can take advantage of lawyers to defend themselves,” Monterona said.

The Aquino administration cut the LAF from 50 million Philippine pesos in 2010 to only 27 million for 2011 in its budget for the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA).

Under the Migrant Workers and Overseas Filipinos Act of 1995, the budget allocation for the LAF is P100 million. –VVP, GMANews.TV