OFW Journals (OFW Stories on the News) and Some OFW Employment, Career & Business Tips

We have been remiss in not monitoring the travails of OFWs as closely as we could have.

Let's start by re-posting the cases and calling on everyone within reading area who has new information to update us on any of the cases that follow.

A Questionable Case of Suicide, Another Case of Government Neglect

At 2 a.m. of May 3, a day after her birthday, Felisa “Fely” Garcia was finally back home after almost four years in the United States as a domestic helper. But hers was the saddest of all overseas Filipino workers’ return. There were no warm hugs from Fely as she arrived at the airport inside a box, lifeless.

BY AUBREY SC MAKILAN
Bulatlat

At 2 a.m. of May 3, a day after her birthday, Felisa “Fely” Garcia was finally back home after almost four years in the United States as a domestic helper. But hers was the saddest of all overseas Filipino workers’ return; not because she had no balikbayan boxes containing her pasalubong (bringing home gifts) for friends and relatives; not that her 59th birthday had been forgotten by her children and relatives in Batangas; but what her family and friends had been waiting and wanting to see her smile and happy gestures when she arrived at the airport were not there. There were no warm hugs from Fely as she arrived at the airport inside a box, lifeless.

Ate Fely

On October 2003, Ate Fely, as she was fondly called by fellow OFWs, (Overseas Filipino Workers) arrived in the U.S. as a caregiver. Her permanent resident card was issued on that same month, seemingly a realization of a dream for Filipinos in the U.S..

A widow, she supported her four children in the Philippines by working as a domestic helper in New York. Ate Fely used to send $400 almost every month to them.

“My mother was paying for my studies. I’m not sure if I can still go to college, both my parents are dead,” said Gliff John, Garcia’s 17-year old son.

Fely Garcia was found hanging dead in her rented New York Bronx apartment on March 14. In an alleged suicide note that she left behind, she complained of being harassed by her employer, a certain “Wener Oppenheimer”.

“Ito ang tao (Wener Oppenheimer) ang dapat mananagot sa akin. Hinaharash niya ako marami siyang kasalanan sa akin. Nag-sorry na ako di niya ako pinakinggan,” (This is the person, Wener Oppenheimer, who is responsible for my death. He had been harassing me and had done many things to me. I already apologized but he did not listen.) read the suicide note dated March 13 allegedly left by Garcia.

The New York Police Department (NYPD) concluded that it was a suicide based on the four handwritten suicide letters believed to be left by Garcia. But her children and friends could not believe she would end her own life.

Consul Edgar Badjaos earlier reported that according to the Bronx Medical Office which conducted the utopsy, “there was no foul play, no rape or physical abuse (committed) against Garcia.” He said the information paved the way for the repatriation of the body to Manila.

Suicide doubted

John was so shocked he could not believe his mother would commit suicide.

Fely’s 40-year old brother Garry said, “She was never depressed. She always looked after the interest of her children.”

Tessie Ibanga, landlady of Garcia in the Bronx, could also not believe Garcia committed suicide.

“That night, we were so happy. We were eating together,” recalled Ibanga. “She didn’t say she had problems. We were so relaxed. There were no indications of a forthcoming tragedy.”

Along with the family, leaders of the GABRIELA Women’s Party-list (GWP) and Migrante International, who accompanied Fely’s relatives at the airport to pick up her body, suspected foul play in Garcia’s death.

Connie Bragas-Regalado, Migrante International Chairperson, said that their group and GWP, together with other organizations in the U.S.,demanded for a reinvestigation of the case. She said that cases like this are often “brushed under the rug by the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) and Philippine Consulate officials.”

Filipino community outrage

Last April 29, hundreds from the Filipino community gathered to join Fely’s family in a public wake and community farewell to the Filipina domestic worker at the Greenwich Village Funeral Home in lower Manhattan.

Aside from the prayer service, the event was also highlighted by the presence of Fely's two sons, Gabriel and John, whose travel expenses to the U.S. were raised by Filipino community groups there.

Eldest son Gabriel Garcia delivered a tearful eulogy to his mother, letting the audience of mainly Filipina domestic workers and youth know who exactly Fely Garcia was.

"Mabuting siyang tao, pinalaki niya kaming lahat na mga anak niya sa mabuting paraan. May pinag-aralan, titser siya sa high school noon sa Batangas at nag trabaho din sa office of the Mayor sa amin," (She was a good person and she brought us all up in a good way. She was educated, a teacher in high school in Batangas and worked in the office of the Mayor in our province) said Gabriel.

Statements from various groups were read after the prayer service. A poem, Misteryo ng Hapis (Mystery of Sorrow), written for Fely by Palanca awardee and University of the Philippines professor Maria Josephine Barrios, was read in both English and Filipino.

The community wake for Fely, considered one of the largest public community wakes for a Filipina in New York City, was organized by the Philippine Forum, a community service organization in Queens and its domestic workers organizing project KABALIKAT.

Fr. Sancho Garrote, chaplain of the Jacobi Medical Center where Garcia 's body was released, said that grassroots community organizations are needed in pursuing justice for Garcia and all OFWs “especially in the absence of genuine rights and welfare policies for our compatriots abroad."

Justice for Fely

Through the Justice for Fely campaign launched by various Filipino groups, the Philippine Forum said they have secured pro-bono legal representation for the family and are still raising funds to help the family with their financial burdens. It has also launched an online petition demanding justice for her death.

The "Truth & Justice for Domestic Worker Fely Garcia" has united the Filipino community across cities and countries. Filipino and Philippine solidarity organizations – such as Ugnayan ng mga Anak ng Bayan, Network in Solidarity with the People of the Philippines (NISPOP), Gabriela Network, Justice for Filipino American Veterans (JFAV), Ecumenical Fellowship for Justice and Peace, Alliance for Just and Lasting Peace in the Philippines (AJLPP), Committee on Philippine Issues, Ugnayan ng Kabataang Pilipino sa Canada / Filipino-Canadian Youth Alliance (UKPC-FCYA), Grassroots Women, British Columbia Committee for Human Rights in the Philippines (BCCHRP), Liga ng Kabataang Pilipino, Bethune House Migrant Workers Refuge, BAYAN Philippines – have shown fervent support for the campaign. Allied workers organizations – Domestic Workers United, Women Workers Project, New York Taxi Workers Alliance and Andolan Organizing South Asian Communities – and individuals from unions – SEUI/1199, American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO), Transit Workers Union (TWU), the United Federation of Teachers (UFT), and UNITE-HERE – share in a common workers struggle. Immigrant organizations have also shown solidarity – such as Desis Rising Up and Moving (DRUM), Centro Hispanio Cuzcatlan, CAAAV Organizing Asian Communities, and Immigrant Justice Solidarity Project. Academics from Barnard College, Cornell University, Pratt University, and University of California Santa Cruz along with students from 15 different colleges have signed and circulated the petition.

The Philippine Consulate has reportedly given the family a partial repatriation fee of $4900. No burial fee money, said the Philippine Forum, has been offered by the Philippine Consulate.

Meanwhile, Philippine Forum asserts that such financial, legal, and other forms of assistance should be standardized in a policy by the Philippine government, and not offered, as in Garcia's case, on a case-to-case basis.

For migrant and Filipino community groups, Fely’s death shows the vulnerability of Filipino domestic workers overseas. They said that she was one of the 30,000 Filipino domestic workers in New York who, together with domestic workers in Hong Kong and the Middle East are forced to work in abusive, dangerous and dehumanizing conditions, without legal protection from both
the Philippine and U.S. governments.

Even in the U.S., said the Philippine Forum, migrant domestic workers, who are 95 percent women, are overwhelmed with problems resulting from separation from their children, long hours of work, low wages, no overtime pay and lack of benefits. They experience systemic racism and devaluation of women’s labor in the domestic sphere.

The family, who was not alerted by the DFA of their mother's death until 2 weeks after her body was found, expressed their dismay over the failure of the Philippine government to act until the community organizations pressured for justice.

"Sa nangyaring ito ay mas lumalabas lamang ang mga kakulangan at problema sa gobyerno hinggil sa pag aasikaso at serbisyo sa mga kababayan natin sa abroad. May pangangailangan talaga na baguhin ang sistema tungkol sa pagtulong sa mga Pilipino na maging policy at hindi yung case to case lamang. (Because of what happened, the inadequacies and problems of the government in
providing assistance and services to our compatriots abroad were exposed. There is an urgent need to change the system of providing assistance which should be standardized in policies instead of handling problems on a case-to-case basis)," said Geraldine Gamboa, Fely’s only daughter.

“In spite of the billions of dollars of OFW remittances which prop up the Philippine economy, the Arroyo government still criminally neglects OFWs and treats them no better than dishrags when they become victims of injustices. Worse, Philippine officials here and abroad sometimes even serve as mouthpieces of host employers or foreign governments in their attempt to close such cases quickly,” said GWP OFW nominee Flora Belinan. Belinan said 7 out of 10 OFWs are women, and approximately 80 to 90 cases of abuses on OFWs victimize women domestic workers.

“Fely’s death emboldens us to continue the struggle for OFWs’ rights and welfare inside and outside Congress. We commit to forwarding our pro-OFW agenda in the House of Representatives to ensure that the Philippine government pays more than lip-service to the countless OFWs who toil overseas,” she added.

Both Migrante International and GWP have been pushing for a genuinely migrant-conscious legislative agenda in the Philippine Congress. The neglect of OFWs and the lack in policies continue despite over three decades of the Philippine Government's Labor Export Policy (LEP) launched by former Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos in 1974 to ease the unemployment situation in the country. Bulatlat