QC councilor asks government to fight for rights of OFWs

Filipino contract workers’ dollar remittances buffer the economy from the impact of slowdown, said human rights lawyer-turned Quezon City Councilor Antonio Enrile Inton Jr. "I urge President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo to redeem our national pride by elevating the Filipino deportees’ issue to the United Nations Security Council," Inton said. In his first privilege speech this year, Inton also announced the filing of a special resolution to formalize the City Council’s support for UN action on the issue and to renounce any form of discrimination against Filipinos worldwide. Inton told The STAR that there is a growing international culture of distrust and discrimination against Filipino migrants and workers in almost all countries.

Filipinos entering Japan as tourists are immediately suspected of being prostitutes, while those traveling to Hong Kong are suspected at once of wanting to work as domestic helpers, Inton said.

Reports said that Filipinos are even made to form separate queues in immigration counters of most European and Asian countries where they are made to answer rigorous questions that are often insulting.

"The Filipinas are now celebrated by the world press as the choice sex slave of her alien masters. This degrading image must be rectified. We must tell the world that we will not allow our national pride and honor to be trampled upon and that we are prepared to fight for it at any cost," Inton stressed. – Wilfredo Suarez