OFWs used as comfort women by gov’t execs

Kudos to the International Marketing Group (IMG) on its 10th Annual Convention today at the SMX Convention Center at the Mall of Asia. IMG is one rare marketing company in the Philippines that is dedicated to serving the financial needs of individuals and families from all walks of life, not just here at home in the Philippines, but individual Filipinos and their families who are working abroad as overseas Filipino workers (OFW) because of their worldwide financial distribution companies in the US, Canada, Taiwan, Hong Kong, the Middle East, Italy and Spain. I was with IMG execs in Rome last October.

IMG has partnered with many of the world’s leading financial service companies in providing an array of products and services that can help turn an ordinary salaried OFW into a businessman or woman. One of their major thrusts is financial education, because they believe in that dictum “knowledge is power.” It is for this reason that the top executives of IMG, notably, Dr. Jo-en delas Peña, Mr. Bart Borja and Mr. Noel Arandilla give out weekly lectures on financial independence, not only from their own personal perspectives, but to the hundreds of IMG agents worldwide who too have a great story to tell.

*      *      *

Speaking of OFWs… that report given through a presscon called by Akbayan Rep. Walden Bello was indeed a nationwide shocker! Here we are, trying to fight that worldwide scourge that the Cable News Network (CNN) has adopted as their backbone advocacy dubbed “The Freedom Project” aimed to put an end to “Modern Day Slavery,” where they recently featured a report from Cecilia Flores-Oebanda of the Visayan Forum Inc. (VFI) who requested the support of boxing great Manny Pacquiao. Things were moving great in this problematic area, then came that Bello report!

Rep. Walden Bello is the chairman of the House committee on overseas worker’s affairs and in that presscon he revealed that there were three “Predator” officials from Philippine offices abroad who are the subject of complaints by OFWs and their fellow workers. Hapless Filipino women abroad seeking only to return home have been sexually abused or worse thrown into a prostitution den is too much for us to bear.

We already got the news from the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) that these government officials will return home to face an investigation into these allegations. The question is… what if some of them go AWOL? What intrigues my mind is Rep. Bello belongs to the Akbayan group that no less than President Aquino  pointed out that he and Akbayan think alike. So if P-Noy is close to the Akbayan group… why did Rep. Bello blurt it out to the press instead of telling this directly to P-Noy or his political adviser Ronald Llamas who once chaired Akbayan? What was Rep. Bello’s hidden agenda?

Pundits are even wondering why didn’t Rep. Bello wait to expose this case until after P-Noy made his State of the Nation Address (SONA) at the end of the month? During an intense discussion with my friends we came up with our thoughts that perhaps Akbayan is now distancing itself from P-Noy after the Akbayan pillar Risa Hontiveros lost her senatorial bid. So are we seeing cracks in the walls inside Malacañang?

For many years we have known that Filipina women working abroad as OFWs have been sexually abused or sexually exploited by foreign masters and few have reported them for fear of losing their jobs or worse, being thrown to jail for facing false or malicious accusations. This has always been the greatest risk to Filipino women and it doesn’t matter if they are nurses, chambermaids or office workers… they are all fair game to sexual predators.

But for Philippine Embassy officials to do this was indeed shocking news for us, which brought back the ugly memories of our Filipino comfort women. Only this time, these OFWs were not exploited by their foreign masters, but our very own Filipino officials! If you ask me… this is no ordinary sexual crime…and I hope our laws are strong enough to put these leeches to jail and throw away the key!

There is no doubt that poor Filipina workers are more often than not “forced” into sex or worse forced into prostitution because of their poverty. But if this were done by Filipino government officials…in my book this case is worst than corruption…it’s a heinous crime and a black mark on the Aquino Regime that proudly boasts of his Daan Matuwid (Straight path) program purportedly where corruption would eliminate poverty.

This incident couldn’t have come at the wrong time when Pres. Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino, III is still smarting from his PCOS machine victory of his Liberal Party (LP) and his propagandists are deep into making his up and coming State of the Nation Address (SONA). One thing for sure, Malacañang cannot pin this to former Pres. Gloria Macapagal Arroyo.

*  *  *

For email responses to this article, write to [email protected] or [email protected]. His columns can be accessed through www.philstar.com.