On overseas Filipinos

I was listening to the news sometime in March and heard of the persistence of the Australian government to get the facts about the death of Britt Laptorne, an Australian who was holidaying in Croatia.  Two Federal police were being sent to Croatia to examine the Croatian government’s investigation on the case. Britt Laptorne went missing in September 2008 and her body was found 18 days after.  After one year and five months, the Australian government is still investigating her death.

Then I read a statement from Migrante Middle East an Overseas Filipino Workers’ group seeking probe on the death of a Filipino worker in the United Arab Emirates.  The worker was Ragima Jamal, 19 years old, working as a domestic worker or maid. She allegedly died of unexplained head and body injuries.  Ragima’s death adds to the long list of mysterious deaths of overseas Filipino Workers. In many cases, the body of the dead Filipinos are brought to the Philippines, delivered to the family and forgotten by the Philippine government with no compensation nor help to the families and no investigation.  Only when progressive Filipino groups learned about it and demanded an investigation, did the Philippine government, fearing public condemnation.

On election

Voting in Australia is conducted manually.  People go to the polling places from eight in the morning and cast their votes by marking the ballot paper with pencil and dropping them in the ballot boxes. The voting generally lasts up to six in the afternoon.  Polling places are schools in local electorates.  There are no police or military guards in the polling places and candidates’ representatives are not allowed inside the building perimeter.  The counting however, is done by machines and the result of the election is known the next day as early as morning. We do not hear of voting ghosts, or persons who may have died years ago but turn out alive on election day as their identities are used by unscrupulous elements to pad certain candidates’ count. We do not hear of missing ballot boxes or ballot boxes that wander and never reach their proper destination. We do not hear of politicians or their supporters being harassed, vanished or killed.

The Philippine government is ambitious and arrogant. In the May 2010 presidential election, automated voting was tested.  The testing was actually carried out on a national level since the machines have not been used in any local election. There were not enough machines for all the polling places which meant that several polling places were bundled together.  People from various localities and barrio travelled far and had to wait in long queues to be able to vote.  The ATS machines malfunctioned and crashed in certain areas and contributed to the chaos and disenfranchisement of people on election day. Uniformed and plainclothes guards and military were spotted hovering and staying within and around the polling places. Cheating and other irregularities were reported despite illegal heavy military presence. Election-related harassment, abduction and killings started as early as six months before the election, as in the Maguindanao massacre when more than 50 people were killed.

The events above become norms to many Filipinos. They know that there are problems but some of them are resigned to the belief that nothing can be done.  Their fears and worries are constant and they have no choice but to live with them.

By Dingin Dalisay