MANILA — Government should include the names of family members in the record of blacklisted employers overseas, a lawmaker said Tuesday.
Rep. Ron Salo, who chairs the House Committee on Overseas Workers Affairs, pointed out that the suspect in the brutal killing of Jullebee Ranara in Kuwait was not her employer.
"Ang puwedeng gumawa ng pang-aabuso sa mga kababayan natin ay isang family member, kagaya ng nangyari kay Jullebee," Salo said in a Laging Handa briefing.
(The one who can abuse our countrymen is a family member, like what happened to Jullebee.)
Reports say the teen son of Ranara's employer, now arrested by Kuwait authorities, allegedly raped and impregnated her before the killing. Her burned body was found in a desert in Kuwait last week.
"Mahalaga na dito sa listahan... mayroong [kopya] ang DMW (Department of Migrant Workers) at mga recruitment agencies, kasama po 'yung mga miyembro ng pamilya," the congressman said.
(It is important that in the list... there is a copy of the DMW and recruitment agencies, including family members.)
Salo and DMW Secretary Susan "Toots" Ople held a meeting Monday with recruitment agencies to shore up protections for Filipinos who go abroad for work following the death of Ranara.
The lawmaker added that Ranara's recruitment agency could have been more proactive in monitoring her for possible abuses.
"Mas maganda kung mas na-monitor mas proactive 'yung ginawang measure para sana narinig o nakita nung agency kung sakaling kung mayroon ngang pang-aabuso na naganap sa kanya," he said.
(It would have been better if there had been more monitoring and more proactive measures so that the agency would have heard or seen that there was any abuse that happened to her.)
Currently, there are 260,000 overseas Filipino workers in Kuwait, and 70 percent of them are domestic helpers, according to Salo.