Option for OFWs in Japan

CEBU, Philippines - Some people suggested that Filipino workers in Japan be given their right to decide whether or not to leave their Japanese employers during crisis after Tsunami hit the country last week.

Former Cebu City Councilor Sylvan “Jack” Jakosalem said in his radio program, several people said it is unfair for the government to compel the Filipino workers to go back to the country even if they want to continue serving their employers.

Jakosalem wants that the Filipino workers be given the chance to decide for themselves.

“What I’m saying is at least give them a choice, not force them to come back. Im sure some of them want to stay behind as a form of gratitude to their employers who have been good to them and giving them the means to their entire families and relatives through school, provide all their needs and in return we want them to abandon them at their greatest time of need?” Jakosalem said.

Many of the Filipino workers in Japan work as caregivers for the elderly who are now homeless and nurses of the various hospitals who are now caring those who were injured during the calamity.

Jakosalem said he strongly believe that if the Filipino workers are given the chance to speak, they will say “We are here staying behind because these Japanese have been responsible for me being able to send enough money back home to put my brother and sister to school, send my father to the hospital after his stroke, medicine for my ailing Lola, then you want me to abandon them when they need our help in their worst ever catastrophe?”

But others also believed that the decision of the government to repatriate Filipino workers from Japan is a wise and prudent measure to ease them from the extremely severe and enormous difficulties and pains they are now suffering.

An 8.9 magnitude earthquake and 10-meter tsunami waves hit Japan, where thousands of Filipinos are working as entertainers, nurses, caregivers, construction workers, among others, on March 11. —

(FREEMAN)