By Mortz C. Ortigoza
Because there were not enough attractive paying jobs in the
Philippines, Joanna Demafelis, 29, took her chances as servant for
the family of a Lebanese and a Syrian couple in Kuwait – a country
notorious for abuses among foreign workers.
Demafelis had not only been looked down, but abused, harmed, and murdered by her masters who hid her cadaver in a freezer in an abandoned apartment for a year while they absconded to another country.
Demafelis had not only been looked down, but abused, harmed, and murdered by her masters who hid her cadaver in a freezer in an abandoned apartment for a year while they absconded to another country.
The Lebanese and Syrian couple, the alleged killers of Filipina maid Joanna Demafelis? A photo grab from the Facebook's community page. |
The resident of Sara, Iloilo was only one of the countless Filipinas
who suffered those brazen inhuman abuses like wanton rapes because members of
the Congress – yes Virginia those publicity hungry senators and
congressmen you saw on TV in a circus called public hearings – did not act if
not procrastinate in amending the Public Safety Acts (PSA).
Amendment of the PSA or Commonwealth Act No. 146 is the Silver Bullet
that would give tremendous jobs for the Filipinos.
It deals with and regulates all types of common carriers, be it by
land, air or water, water supplies and systems, petroleum, electricity,
communications systems and even broadcasting stations.
It is where utilities have been mandated by law to be averagely 60
percent owned by Filipino or Filipinos despite the thick pockets of the foreign
partners who contented themselves to settle for the 40 % of the voting stocks.
As a result, most foreign investors shun our country and instead poured
their billions of U.S dollars in Mainland China, Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam,
Indonesia, other countries in the Far East Region.
These countries dangle 100 percent business ownership and other perks
to draw to their shores the elusive capitals of these businessmen.
A report on the amount of foreign direct investments
to the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) shows that between
1952 and 2012, Singapore accounts for more than half of total foreign direct
investment (FDI) to the whole region (at 52 percent). Thailand ranks the second
with a 13 percent share, followed by Indonesia with 11 percent, Malaysia with
10 percent, Vietnam with 8 percent and the Philippines with 3 percent.
Consequently, these countries have less employment problems unlike the
parochial thinking Filipinos whose senators and congressmen were seen riding in
a lent helicopters and planes of local oligarchs who need protection (read:
against adverse legislation) for their well-entrenched businesses at the
expense of better services to the Filipinos.
Yes, I know what you are thinking as you read this column. What flashed
in your mind are PLDT, Globe, and other big businesses that got your ire
because of not only pathetic but very expensive services. Blame duopoly and
members of Congress who relished and splurged the alleged lobby monies in tens
if not hundreds of millions of pesos allegedly given by these Interest Groups.
Because of reduced competitions, Filipinos wallow into poverty because
of lack of jobs because firms are limited to Filipinos lead by tycoons like
Ayalas, Manny V. Pangilinan and his Hong Kong-based First Pacific Company
Ltd., Sys, Gokongweis, Aboitizes, Tans, Gotianuns, Angs, and others.
The cadaver (left) of Servant Joanna Demafelis, 29, of Sara, Iloilo Province who was murdered by her foreign couple employers in Kuwait and her remains stuffed in a freezer for one year before they were discovered by authorities. |
In December 2017, the Philippines Statistics Authority disclosed that
we have 2.2 million unemployed Filipinos in October last year. That’s 5.0 of
the employable aged Filipinos. That’s almost half of the presently 106 million
populations.
Experts forecasted that unemployment worsen at the end of the first
quarter of this year with 5.50 percent while the percentage of unemployed
Filipinos was estimated at 5.0 percent in October,
On the other hand, independent organizations have forecasted the
unemployment rate to be 5.50 percent by the end of this first quarter and
around 6.30 percent in 2020.
If our congressmen and senators had summon their common sense and acted
when Former President Gloria Arroyo assumed office in January 20, 2001 by
amending the PSA we would have avoided gory deaths like the one that befell
Demafelis and less reports of abuses among our workers abroad 18
years later.
Are you not bothered by those regular wailing of helpless Filipina
maids at their self-taken video they posted at Face Book while their masters
sexually molested if not raped them? That’s the price of being a poor country
with narrow minded and greedy members of Congress.
If they have changed in 2001 the xenophobic 60-40 percent to 100
percent business equity for everybody, we do not have that 2.2 million
unemployment problem presently and we have less than the present 10 million
overseas foreign workers (OFWs) that were vulnerable to abuses.
Our Johnny-come-lately members of the House of Representatives, who
were branded as House of Thieves vis-à-vis the customary cut on the 20 percent
on projects, had passed in September 8, 2017 the Third and Final Reading the
amendment of the PSA while the senators procrastinate and had just woke up to
their slumber last February 15 and started to deliberate and debate about their
version of the PSA before they submit it to the Bicameral Conference Committee
and for President Rodrigo Duterte to sign it into a law we called Republic Act.
There is a probable snag: If the Interest Groups interfere, would the
senators pass a watered down version of the bill on the PSA?
In case the oligarchs succeed, then we defenseless Filipinos just brace ourselves in the corner and wait for another Joanna Demafelis and other Filipinas to be raped and murdered in a foreign land because the exodus of the Filipinos there are blamed to the lack of job opportunities that should be brought by a liberal PSA.
READ MY Q&A WITH FORMER SPEAKER JOE DE VENECIA
In case the oligarchs succeed, then we defenseless Filipinos just brace ourselves in the corner and wait for another Joanna Demafelis and other Filipinas to be raped and murdered in a foreign land because the exodus of the Filipinos there are blamed to the lack of job opportunities that should be brought by a liberal PSA.
READ MY Q&A WITH FORMER SPEAKER JOE DE VENECIA
(You can read my selected columns at mortzortigoza.blogspot.com and articles at Pangasinan News Aro. You can send comments too at totomortz@yahoo.com)
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