Stranded OFWs in Los Angeles still waiting for govt assistance

WASHINGTON, D.C.: The 11 displaced overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) now stranded in Los Angeles on Tuesday (Wednesday in Manila) vehemently denied receiving any help from the Philippine Overseas Labor Office (POLO) based in Washington, D.C. The workers, who are believed to be victims of human traffickers, said that the only assistance they have received since seeking shelter at the Philippine Consulate-General in San Francisco was $1,000 in personal donations from the consulate staff who took pity on them.

“We are very thankful for their kindness,” said Norman Paul Yaranon by telephone. “They gave us $700 in cash and $300 in coupons for groceries, and we really appreciate it.”

The workers were reacting to a statement issued by the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) in Manila, quoting Labor Attaché Luzviminda Padilla, who had said that various DOLE agencies were helping the workers.

The stranded Filipinos said that they were still staying at the Los Angeles home of a Filipino-American pastor, who prefers to remain anonymous.

“We don’t know what kind of help Mrs. Padilla is talking about. It took her a month to as much as call and check how we were doing,” Yaranon said in Filipino. “And when she did check on us, our impression was that she wanted us to just return to our jobs in Biloxi [Mississippi] or go back to the Philippines.”

He said that their group found Padilla to be insensitive to their plight and that she sounded like she was even scolding them.

“Sinabi niya sa amin, ‘Kung ayaw niyong makinig, bahala kayo sa buhay niyo’ [She admonished us that if we won’t listen to her suggestions, then we’ll be left on our own],” Yaranon added.

“Our only request is if they can’t help us, [they] don’t [have to] put us down because we are getting demoralized,” he said.

Yaranon also denied that they were contacted by any representative from POLO when they were being exploited by their employer in Biloxi.

He took exception to lawyer Ellaine Carr’s statement that she does not remember meeting with him.

Yaranon said that he was brought to Carr’s home by a former co-worker at a Biloxi casino hotel.

According to him, other members of their group also had a chance to meet with Carr, but the lawyer, he said, never indicated she was in any way trying to help the Labor department.

“We stopped seeing her because we had no money to pay for her services,” Yaranon added.

When asked how much Carr was trying to charge them, the workers said that no amount was mentioned, but that she had suggested that they could chip in some money individually for the cost of pursuing their complaints.

In a statement from Manila, the Labor department belied a report by The Manila Times saying that DOLE officials have not been acting on a request for assistance of the 11 stranded OFWs.

“The DOLE, together with the Overseas Workers Welfare Administration [OWWA] and the Philippine Overseas Labor Office in Washington, D.C., has provided assistance to the OFWs pending the filing of formal charges against the alleged illegal traffickers,” Nicon Fameronag, the director of the DOLE Labor Communications Office, said in a statement.

Fameronag added that Padilla, in a telephone call, explained that she had recommended to the OWWA in Manila to provide subsistence allowance to the workers, and clarified that what the 11 OFWs might be complaining about was their request, coursed through Adonis Duero, the welfare officer in Washington, D.C., for the OWWA to provide them financial assistance to rent a house where they could stay in Los Angeles.

The request is being studied carefully by the OWWA because the length of time in which the OFWs might stay in Los Angeles is indefinite.

Also, OWWA had instructed Welof Duero to coordinate his activities in Los Angeles with Padilla, her superior, who had recommended consolidation of complaints of the 11 OFWs with those of 18 other trafficked victims, who have stayed in Biloxi to pursue and monitor their cases.

According to Padilla, government authorities of Mississippi have not decided when to proceed with the filing of a case on behalf of the 11 OFWs, although she said that the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI)
had interviewed three of them and had submitted results of the interview to Mississippi authorities.

“We are waiting for the decision of the authorities of the State of Mississippi on this matter,” Padilla said.

She disclosed that she was set to meet with trafficking officers of the US Department of Justice on Wednesday, together with the political officer of the Philippine Embassy, specifically to coordinate with the FBI and the US Department of Homeland Security’s continued investigation of the perpetrators of the alleged crime of human trafficking. –JUN MEDINA SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT, Manila Times