Today, I came across an article about Angelo Dela Cruz. In 1996, dela Cruz, a father of eight children who grew up in a peasant family, went to a foreign land in order to send his children to school and provide for the basic needs of his family. In the midst of the US-led war in Iraq in 2004, dela Cruz was taken hostage by the Iraqi Islamic Army, al-Walid Corps on July 8 and threatened with beheading if the Philippine government did not withdraw its troops from Iraq.
Seven years after his abduction, dela Cruz, the Iraq ban symbol, remains to be a simple man who "undertakes to help his cabalen (townmates) with small favors such as clearing birth certificate inconsistencies and passport applications."
Seven years have passed and the Philippine policy to Iraq has not changed. For so long, the government has not reconsidered lifting the ban against Iraq while so many Filipinos take far more dangerous jobs in the Philippines as construction workers, drivers, miners, etc. Oil prices are rising as well as other commodities for meager pay. Unemployment is still a problem while the Iraqi government looks for workers to rebuild its nation. So what do we do? Do we heed to the call or not?
OFWs pay all kinds of taxes. They send money to their families and they are taxed. They send goods to the Philippines and they are taxed. Their income gets taxed. A large part of government income comes from OFW remittances. But why is it that when these OFWs are in need of government assistance, it is like they are begging for it? With the opportunity (income, to say it blatantly) which the government gets for sending OFWs abroad comes the responsibility to take care of them. That is the risk that a government assumes all the time whenever it sends citizens to foreign countries.
I am saying, it might be time to relax our policy towards deployment of workers to Iraq simply because it might not be any different to any country where we send our OFWs. Maybe it is time to open that box where we have placed Iraq and we might find so many opportunities waiting for the hardworking Pinoys in there.
Seven years after his abduction, Dela Cruz advocates the lifting of the deployment ban against Iraq.
For more information about the article on Angelo Dela Cruz: http://opinion.inquirer.net/5893/angelo-dela-cruz-%E2%80%98it%E2%80%99s-time-to-lift-the-iraq-ban%E2%80%99
