2,300 OFWs follow up 27-year-old case vs Texas-based firm

MANILA, Philippines—Some 2,300 overseas Filipino workers on Monday urged the Supreme Court to act on their appeal in connection with the 27-year-old case they filed against a Texas-based giant company worth some $609-million in claims plus interest.

In a three-page urgent motion ex parte for immediate decision, the group, through their lawyer Jerry Del Mundo, urged the high court to immediately resolve their appeal and affirm the December 3, 2002 ruling of the National Labor Relations Commission (NLRC) against Kellog, Brown, and Root.

NLRC had ordered that they be paid $609 million plus 12-percent interest payments for back wages, damages, discrimination pay, hazard, and retirement pay.

The group of OFWs, who also held a protest rally outside the high court, said they have been fighting for their claims for 27 years.

The OFWs, who came from various provinces such as Batangas, Laguna, and Cavite, urged the high court to decide on the merits of the pending petition.

This is the biggest discrimination suit that reached the high court since its creation in 1901.

In 2008, the high court ruled that not all the more than 2,000 claimants are entitled to the $609 million because some claims were unsubstantiated.

The case was filed with the NLRC in 1984 to secure justice and compensation for all the marginalized and poor OFWs and similarly situated workers. They were hired and employed by Brown & Root International Inc. (now Kellog-Brown and Root) in their overseas projects in the Middle East, like Bahrain and United Arab Emirates, from 1976 to the 1990s. Many of them also worked in Vietnam during the war between North and South Vietnam in the 1960s before their overseas employment in the Middle East.

Kellog-Brown and Root, based on Texas, is an associated company of the Halliburton Group of Companies, which had United States Vice President Richard “Dick” Cheney as its chief executive officer for five years. –Tetch Torres, INQUIRER.net