Migrante offers to assist family of Cebuana OFW

The International Alliance of Filipino Migrants Organization or Migrante International offered to assist the family of Lolita Bacalla, the Cebuana domestic helper who died after falling from a 14-story condominium where her employer lives in Taipei Taiwan last Wednesday.

Migrante Central Visayas coordinator Ritchie Nillas said the group will be talking to Bacalla's family to offer assistance especially in the repatriation of Lolita's body and the re-autopsy that Bacalla's mother, Carmelita Querubin, requested.

Querubin earlier told The Freeman that although her daughter's body is set to be autopsied in Taipei, she wants a re-autopsy done when the body gets here. Bacalla's 24-year-old son Patrick will be leaving for Taiwan on Thursday to get his mother's body.

Although it has not been determined yet what caused Bacalla's fall from the 14th floor of the condominium where her employer lives, Nillas said abuses and exploitation are a common experience of overseas workers.

Nillas said that there are around 3,000 Filipinos who go abroad everyday to work and from the number, there are also around five to 10 bodies of OFWs that arrive in the Philippines everyday.

He said that most of the OFW concerns that are brought to their office are contract violations, rape, sexual harassment and mysterious deaths, among others. Yearly, he added, hundreds of thousands of Filipinos are reported to have suffered various forms of abuse and exploitation in the hands of their employers.

Nillas said that women migrant workers in particular are most vulnerable to abuses and maltreatment.

"The anguish and ordeal of migrant Filipinos continue. The conditions that confront them necessitate the continued organizing, education and mobilization work among their ranks in their struggle for their rights and welfare, and for genuine freedom and democracy," he said. - Jasmin R. Uy