OFWs Who Lived For Years Under a Bridge in Jeddah Return Home with Harrowing Tales of Neglect

OFWs Who Lived For Years Under a Bridge in Jeddah Return Home with Harrowing Tales of Neglect

“When we were still (in Saudi) the government did not help us. Now that we are home, they still could not extend any assistance to us.” – Lubaira Guiandal, 43, one of the OFWs who lived under the Khandara Bridge while awaiting repatriation.

By JANESS ANN J. ELLAO
Bulatlat.com
MANILA — Outside Migrante International’s office in Cubao, Quezon City, 11 overseas Filipino workers were sharing their recent experiences to the group and to some church workers when, all of a sudden, one of them stood up and banged the table thrice, emphatically saying, “Nothing. Nothing. Nothing.”

The man was Arnulfo Manongdo, 42, a recently repatriated OFW who lived under the Khandara Bridge in Jeddah for six months. He was reenacting what Vice Consul Lorenzo Rhys Jungco did and said when they approached him and the Philippine consulate in Jeddah for assistance on their request for immediate repatriation.

Manongdo left to work as a maintenance crew for the Kimpahad Medical City on March 20, 2006. His principal agency, a  manpower services based in Saudi Arabia called Al-Safari, gave him the salary stipulated in the contract — 1,800 riyals — for the first three months. On the fourth month onward, however, Al-Safari refused to give them their salary unless they surrendered their iqama (residency permit).

Arnulfo Manongdo (left) served as leader to the OFWs who lived under the Khandara Bridge for years while awaiting for repatriation. (Photo by Janess Ann J. Ellao / bulatlat.com)

He chose not surrender his iqama, while his co-workers who submitted theirs received a salary of only 450 riyals and a food allowance amounting to 200 riyals. Without a single riyal to survive, he worked on a part-time basis for other companies. But Manongdo eventually escaped from Al-Safari sometime in November 2006 after seeing that it would not change its policies regarding the workers’ salaries.

Manongdo managed to find different jobs, from being a cargo carrier to a restaurant crew. He could not, however, find a regular job. “We were paid for a month, then fired the next month,” he said, “I could hardly send money to my family.”.... MORE

Source:  Bulatlat.com

URL: http://bulatlat.com/main/2011/02/20/ofws-who-lived-for-years-under-a-bridge-in-jeddah-return-home-with-harrowing-tales-of-neglect/