Poverty forced 2 Caraga OFWs killed in Afghan crash to work abroad

BISLIG CITY , Philippines   – With no jobs available locally after the once biggest paper mill in Asia, Picop Resources, shut down its operations in this coastal city of Surigao del Sur, 38-year-old Ricardo Vallejos was forced to leave his two children in the care of his 76-year-old mother, Lucena, whose 79-year-old husband, also a former Picop worker, just passed away.

Vallejos’ sister Aida Vallejos Catacutan, whose husband is working in Iraq, told The STAR that his brother was forced to work in Afghanistan to sustain the education of his two sons, both high school students, after his wife left home in May 2005 and never returned.

Catacutan said his brother was the youngest among the 11 Vallejos siblings.

“He was concerned about the education of his two sons. He wished that they could finish college someday to help the family after their mother left them in 2005,” she said.

Vallejos was among the 10 Filipino workers working at the North Atlantic Treaty Organization base in Afghanistan who were killed in a helicopter crash in that strife-torn country last Sunday.

Another Caraga resident, Celso Caralde, 41, a resident of Lower Tiniwisan, Butuan City, was among the fatalities, too. He had two daughters, a college student and a high school senior.

Vallejos and Caralde had both worked in same US military installation in Iraq – the former as mechanic for more than a year, and the latter as driver for more than four years – before they left for jobs in Afghanistan.

Caralde’s daughter Airish, a student of the Fr. Urios High School in Butuan City, said her father was also forced to work abroad to sustain their schooling after their mother, Carolina, underwent a major surgical operation five years ago which did not allow her to work anymore.

Caralde’s children fear that they have to stop school this semester since the promissory notes for their tuition have piled up.

Airish, who turns 16 today, said she will celebrate her birthday minus her father whom she described as a good and caring man who never raised his voice to his children.

“He even befriended my friends and when he left last July 5, he told my classmates and friends to always protect and take care of me,” she recalled.

“We will surely miss him for he is a good man who was forced to work in another land because he couldn’t find a good paying job right here in our homeland,” she added.

Ronnie Zamora, an officer of the Overseas Workers’ Welfare Administration, said Caralde had just arrived from Iraq and left Butuan last July 5 for his flight to Afghanistan on July 12.

“He was barely a week in Afghanistan when he was among those unfortunately killed in the plane crash,” he said.