THINGS are moving fast in the case of Joanna Demafelis of Barangay Ferraris, Sara, Iloilo.
Since her battered body was found in a freezer in an apartment in Kuwait abandoned by her former employers, a Lebanese and his Syrian wife, President Duterte has stopped any further deployment of overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) in Kuwait. Hundreds of these workers OFWS have been returning home from Kuwait, with transportation assistance from Cebu Pacific and Philippine Airlines.
Joanna’s Lebanese employer, Nader Essam Assaf, and his Syrian wife Mona have been arrested in Damascus, Syria.
Foreign Affairs Secretary Alan Peter Cayetano said he expects Kuwait authorities to seek their extradition so they can be tried for murder in Kuwait.
Secretary of the Department of Labor and Employment (DoLE) Silvestre Bello III has recalled the Filipino labor officers in Kuwait, for failing to act on a request by the Demafelis family after she went missing in January last year.
In Manila, President Duterte asked the National Bureau of Investigation to look for the recruiters of Joanna. She was originally recruited by Our Lady of Mount Carmel Global E-Human Resources, Inc., which has, however, been closed down. The foreign recruitment agency which signed Joanna up is Fadilah Farz Kaued al Khodor Recruitment office which reportedly is on the watchlist of the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration because of a pending case.
Thus, on so many fronts, officials of many countries are moving to give justice to a Filipina murder victim. Before Joanna, there had been the death of seven migrant workers last January but with no details about their deaths, only reports of maltreatment of many Filipino workers by their employers, the DoLE reported. Then came the report that a Filipina had committed suicide after she was raped.
These victims were unidentified, mere statistics. The next reported victim in Kuwait had a name – Joanna Demafelis – and a picture of a pretty 28-year-old produced by her family in Iloilo. And the circumstances of her death were so gruesome, it could not be ignored.
Joanna’s death proved to be a turning point in long history of Filipino overseas work and our government’s handling of the OFW program – just as the death of a minor in Caloocan – Kian de los Santos – was a turning point in the government’s Tokhang program.
The President’s swift and decisive action on the Kuwait OFW program will effect corrections on erroneous practices that have long been tolerated in the recruitment of OFWs. Long after they leave our shores our government needs to continue watching over them to protect them from abuses in the lands where they work.