RP set to bring home maids from Singapore

RP set to bring home maids from Singapore

MANILA (Agencies): Three Philippine Air Force C-130 planes are
preparing to transport Filipina maids in Singapore who wish to
return home, a military official said yesterday.

The planes are awaiting landing clearance from the island
state and are tentatively scheduled to leave Manila to pick up
the workers on yesterday night, Air Force spokesman Col. Cicero
Castillano said by telephone.

President Fidel Ramos has ordered the repatriation of maids in
Singapore who fear for their safety following a row between the
two southeast Asian allies over the execution of a maid who
confessed to a double murder.

He also ordered a ban on further deployment of Filipina maids
there until the row blows over. Singapore is among the top
employers of Filipina domestics with about 60,000, official
figures show.

Flor Contemplacion, who was hanged last March 17, was given a
martyr's burial by thousands of Filipinos on Sunday in Laguna
province, south of Manila.

Meanwhile in Singapore, dozens of Filipino maids were
preparing to return home yesterday.

"There have been a number of calls from domestic helpers who
said they would like to leave Singapore, and the president's
offer (of a free flight) still stands," Corazon del Monte, a
Philippine envoy in Singapore, told UPI.

Earlier reports said that some 200 maids were waiting to
return home, but del Monte said Monday that these reports were
false. The government did not say how many maids were expected to
leave, but independent reports said it could be several dozen.

Ramos said the government was also prepared to bring home
overseas workers in other countries who wish to return home, a
palace statement said.

There are close to three million Filipinos working overseas,
the bulk of whom are in the Middle East.

Since the Contemplacion case broke, families of Filipinos
allegedly abused by employers overseas have come forward to
report the incidents to authorities.

Reports of Filipinos jailed and awaiting execution in the
Middle East have also surfaced.

The Philippine's government also said yesterday it was
counting on Hong Kong, Malaysia, South Korea and Taiwan to absorb
new Filipina domestics amid a ban on further deployments to
Singapore said an overseas employment administrator for the Labor
Department.

"We are looking at four countries in the region" to absorb the
loss, Felicisimo Joson, told reporters. Of the four, Hong Kong,
Malaysia and Taiwan are now major employers of Filipina
domestics.

Up to five million Filipinos, or 7.7 percent of the population
by official estimates work abroad.

Meanwhile in a bizarre twist, a presidential commission in
Manila yesterday ordered the exhumation of the Filipina maid who
Contemplacion confessed to have strangled in Singapore four years
ago.

The remains of Delia Maga will be dug up today in a cemetery
in her home town south of Manila to determine how she died, a
National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) official said.

President Ramos formed the commission to investigate
allegations that Contemplacion was framed by her employer in
Singapore for the murders.

The NBI said an autopsy on Maga could determine if it was
possible she could have been strangled by a woman.

In Singapore, a group of Filipino professionals living in
Singapore thinks their country has overreacted to the hanging of
a Filipina maid for murder, one of the group's leaders said
yesterday.

Certain politicians and publications in the Philippines had
irresponsibly whipped up national outrage over Singapore's March
17 execution of Flor Contemplacion, said Isabelle Gonzales, vice
president of the Filipino Association of Singapore (FAS).

She said the reaction of President Ramos, who called for an
investigation into the case, was puzzling.

"We do not know his reasons for reacting the way he did," she
told Reuters. "All we want to do is prove to the Filipinos back
home that all is well here... Generally, we believe our people
have been treated fairly in the courts of law."

The Philippine national fury over Contemplacion's hanging "is
probably owing to some manipulations or selfish motives of
certain politicians," Gonzales said.

She said Contemplacion was a "self-confessed" murderer. "She
gave all her evidence in court that she's guilty. She has never
proclaimed her innocence."

Dilemma -- Page 5