Succor in Law, Solace in Justice for Distressed OFW Victims of Sex Exploitation

The recent furor over the sex-for-flight and prostitution ring scandals exposed by Akbayan Partylist Representative Walden Bello in public accusing Welfare Officers of Philippine Consulate Offices abroad of soliciting sexual favors from distressed Filipino workers has gradually, nay reluctantly, goaded the victims to come out into the open.

These pitiful and tormented compatriots have all the reasons to be wary and apprehensive. For sure, before they were sexually abused they would have been threatened of all sorts of retribution if they squealed or filed a complaint. After all, what’s not to be afraid of? These sex predators are sick in the head.

A published call from DFA Secretary Albert Del Rosario on the victims “out there” to come forward and formally file charges to bring the culprits to justice, and correct this horrible episode in our Foreign Service chapter, has drawn one victim to implicate one Saudi-hosted Philippine Consulate official of waylaying her to his home instead of depositing her in the official welfare shelter of foreign service office. Dastardly!

Many are expected to follow suit, and finally decide to break their silence and demand justice. We encourage them.

By doing so, they not only seek closure to this dark and harrowing experience they endured and move on after, they also help lay a safer foundation for the hundreds of thousands that are still out there and the thousands more that are yet to join the ranks of OFW.

For certain the victims deciding to come out will need legal representation, and DFA or POEA may not accommodate all. It is in this spirit, and in an expression of my solidarity with their plight, that I offer my hours to them and I implore my companeros to do the same.

Let us give them our compassionate and free legal service if only to convey that they have us and many others on their side. They have nothing to be ashamed of, and the Filipino nation and its people are proud of their sacrifices, and it cannot and will not turn its back on them in their time of need.

TO OUR COMPATRIOTS WHO HAVE BEEN VICTIMIZED IN THIS DESPICABLY FILTHY SCHEMES, CALL, TEXT THE NUMBER OR EMAIL TO ADDRESS SHOWN ON THE SIDE BAR FOR LEGAL HELP.

TO MY COMPANEROS WHO WANT TO EXTEND THEIR FREE SERVICE AND WANT TO ENLIST THROUGH THIS SITE CALL THE SAME NUMBER AND I WILL PUT YOU IN THE POOL. I THANK YOU IN ADVANCE.

Published also on AttyReggieDuran

DFA Officials Ebroiled in Sex-for-Flight Scandal

Akbayan Partylist Representative Walden Bello accused at least three officials assigned to Labor Welfare Offices of Philippine Consulates in Jordan, Kuwait, and Syria of soliciting sexual favors in exchange for repatriation, and/or peddling these distressed Filipino women seeking shelter at the consulate office in prostitution with foreign clients.

How horrendous can a news get?

This is unimaginably evil. These women are runaways from abusive employers. They must have already endured untold sufferings and pains before mustering the strength and resolve to orchestrate an escape (in a strange land and uncharted territory) from their ravenous masters.

These hapless women must have praised the government to high heavens when they first reached the welfare office –if only they knew what awaited them. I can only imagine how they felt when they realized that their supposed saviors (welfare officers) were in fact, low-life predators who preyed on one’s helplessness.

These perpetrators are officers appointed (presumably vetted by the appointing office) precisely to give aid to these victimized Filipino women. That they knowingly victimized these women (compatriots at that) the second time is the height of depravity that deserves the strongest condemnation.

If these were proven true, these welfare officers are monsters, and are a big shame to our national identity.

They must be prosecuted to the full extent of the law. They deserve no compassion whatsoever.

These are the crimes that scream for death penalty’s application, and make you regret Congress ever abolished it.

No less than the President must make sure that these beasts are brought to justice, and the victims restored and repaired.

US$1.8B AFP Modernization Vs. China’s US$115B Defense Budget for 2013 Alone

The President’s pronouncement that we are allotting US$1.8B or P75B for the modernization of the AFP, for sure, neither concerns China nor impels it to rethink its foreign policies, especially on matters relating to territorial claims, with the Philippines. In fact, in March this year China has already announced that it was setting aside $115B for its defense spending for 2013 alone.

That highlights a disparity that gives the Chinese sophisticated additions to its already humungous military capability, and the Philippines, another attempt at nursing ageing would-have-been-decommissioned vessels out of infirmaries from either US or Japan to sail its way to the Philippine shores.

For certain, many segments of Filipino society, would have goofed on this, and the papers’ editorial cartoonists would have had a field day on the subject. But let us pause for a second, and contemplate at what value the news has for us, the Filipino.

I believe we should start digesting these developments with the heart and mind of our fallen heroes. They fought rifles and varied artilleries with bolos and machetes, outnumbered and all. All in the name of freedom.  All in the pride of the Filipino nation, the Filipino race.

On the one hand, China should never underestimate the resolve of the Filipino people. On the other hand, we should stop behaving like we have the US ready to send their beloved countrymen in harm’s way for us at the slightest of provocations, or even when push comes to shove.

It’s all about interest!

Make no mistake, the US has already made clear its neutral stance on the issue of territorial dispute with China. Sure, US wants to keep China in check – second largest economy with checkered human rights past and present, and of communist ideology.

However, with its (US) trade with latter at hundreds of billions of dollars, with the former at the deficit, coupled with the strange fact that China now stands as the largest lender to the US –gobbling American treasury notes of over a trillion dollars and counting– we are, sad to say (reality bites) just a convenient “democracy” rhetoric trumpet for the US, but their guns aren’t blazing to keep us in one piece.

We have to inch our way forward to credible military capability. We have to learn to fend for ourselves. No more Uncle Sam mentality.

Let’s teach ourselves and our children real, not feigned, patriotism –like what we have in school right now. Let us learn, and teach our children, real combat discipline. Reinstate Reserve Officers’ Training Corps (ROTC) with emphasis on the need to prepare to defend our sovereignty, not against the NPAs, the MILFs, the ASGs, but credibly imminent, the Chinese.

Grow the military in number, arm them, and pay them decent living. Legislate death penalty for military corruption, as it is tantamount to treason.

I have two lovely daughters, and I know that I have to tell them to brace themselves for one day we might have to fight the Chinese, the Malaysians, or anyone who dare trample upon our dignity as a nation, and by ourselves.

Filipino-Chinese are Filipinos who use the term to identify their ethnic root. They are as Filipino as each one of us, until they say and act otherwise, just as any Filipino can be a wolf in sheep’s clothing.

We are Filipino in every sense of the word. We must stand together when Philippine sovereignty is being threatened.