A group of stranded overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) in Saudi Arabia is seeking the help of the Philippine government for legal assistance and repatriation.
The group has been stranded for five years in their former employer’s shelter and are still not giving up in their quest to seek justice and compensation.
Rolando Matias, 61, has been working for a metal works company in Saudi Arabia for 18 years until 2016 when their employers abandoned them.
He was one of the more than 300 migrant workers that filed labor dispute cases against the company, Bulatlat reported.
A Saudi labor court ruled in favor of them and ordered the company to sell their properties as compensation and payment for labor claims by the abandoned workers.
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The sad news was the sale is not enough to pay all the workers abandoned.
While their fellow migrant workers who were not compensated gave up and decided to go home their respective countries empty-handed, Matias along with nine other Filipino coworkers, opted to pursue the case and stayed in their previous employers’ housing facility in Jeddah.
Matias said they were hoping that they will soon get their compensation worth 2.3 million Riyals or Php 31.1 million for all of them before returning to the Philippines.
To pursue the compensation, they said they are asking the help of the Philippine government to provide a lawyer that will file an appeal before the Saudi labor court.
However, according to one of the co-workers of Matias, Alan Atilan, the Philippine government has so far provided a translator since the start of their labor case.
To make the matters worse, their respective iqama or residence permits have already expired putting them in limbo and hindering them from getting updates about their case from the Kingdom’s Ministry of Justice.
Atilan explained they must provide their iqama before they can proceed with online transactions with Saudi government, which is part of the new measures enforced to combat the COVID-19 pandemic.
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In September 2020, they were supposed to file an appeal before the Saudi labor court through the lawyers that used to represent them but, after series of meetings the lawyers informed them that they could no longer proceed with their appeal.
“Perhaps (Labor Secretary Silvestre) Bello III can hear us? We cannot go home without our claims. What would happen to us?” Atilan told Bulatlat.
According to Migrante- Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, the case of Matias is among the hundreds of cases of stranded OFWs who are seeking repatriation.
Migrante – Kingdom of Saudi Arabia chairperson Marlon Gatdula said the distressed OFWs make end meets by taking odd jobs and begging for food.
Often times they were tricked to work without pay since they couldn’t file a complaint.
Meanwhile, Matias said they were hoping to reunite with their families soon. (RA)
